Upturn Seen In Semi Equipment Biz


Business continues to get better in the semiconductor equipment sector. VLSI Research, for one, has raised its forecast in the arena. But there is still some uncertainty amid mixed growth for semiconductors, trade wars and other factors. After a downturn in 2019, the semiconductor equipment market expected an upturn in 2020. Then, the Covid-19 pandemic struck. Suddenly, a large percentage... » read more

Survey: 2019 eBeam Initiative Perceptions Survey Results


Results of the 2020 eBeam Initiative Perceptions survey, now called the Luminaries survey, will be made available starting on September 22 here: Meanwhile, here is the 8th Annual Perceptions Survey – 2019 (July). 68 luminaries across 42 different companies participated. Some highlights: Deep learning impact predicted by 2020: 76% of the respondents say it’s somewhat to very lik... » read more

Challenges At 3/2nm


David Fried, vice president of computational products at Lam Research, talks about issues at upcoming process nodes, the move to EUV lithography and nanosheet transistors, and how process variation can affect yield and device performance. » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Aug. 10


EUV mask cleaning process TSMC has developed a new dry-clean technology for photomasks used in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, a move that appears to solve some major problems in the fab. TSMC and Samsung are in production with EUV lithography at advanced nodes, but there are still several challenges with the photomasks and other parts of the technology. Using 13.5nm wavelengths, EUV... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers and OEMs At next week’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple is expected to roll out its long-awaited Arm-based Mac computers. This could provide a boost for Apple’s foundry vendor as well as equipment makers. It’s the worst-kept secret in the industry. As reported by the Apple sites, Apple is moving from Intel’s microprocessors to its own Arm-based chips for th... » read more

Interconnect Challenges Grow, Tools Lag


Interconnects are becoming much more problematic as devices shrink and the amount of data being moved around a system continues to rise. This limitation has shown up several times in the past, and it's happening again today. But when the interconnect becomes an issue, it cannot be solved in the same way issues are solved for other aspects of a chip. Typically it results in disruption in how ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: June 8


Maskless EUV lithography At this week’s 2020 EUVL Workshop, KJ Innovation will present more details about its efforts to develop a maskless extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology. Still in R&D, KJ Innovation’s maskless EUV technology involves a high-numerical aperture (high-NA) system with 2 million individual write beams. The 0.55 NA technology is targeted for direct-write l... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: June 2


EUV lithography in outer space The U.S. space program made history on May 31, 2020, when NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station (ISS). This is the first time a commercial spacecraft has delivered astronauts to the ISS. The ISS serves as a research lab for companies, government agencies and universiti... » 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

Challenges In Stacking, Shrinking And Inspecting Next-Gen Chips


Rick Gottscho, CTO of Lam Research, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to discuss memory and equipment scaling, new market demands, and changes in manufacturing being driven by cost, new technologies, and the application of machine learning. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: We have a lot of different memory technologies coming to market. What's the impact of that? ... » read more

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