tag: EUV

Time To Think
By Ed Sperling - 26 Sep, 2013 - Comments: 0

The semiconductor industry seems to be running place these days—maybe even sprinting in place. At the leading edge of design, companies are still looking at the ramifications of moving to finFETs. The move to a 20nm process with double patterning on 16/14nm finFETs, depending on the foundry, looks like a fairly safe bet for those companies with the volume and the resources to design and de... » read more

Risk Vs. Reward
By Ed Sperling - 19 Sep, 2013 - Comments: 0

One of the most persistent business myths is that deep pockets in challenging times always win in the end. While that has proven a successful model in many industries where the barrier to entry is enormous and rising, in the technology world the outcome isn’t always what you’d expect even with those same variables. In fact, the history of technology is littered with former business giant... » read more

Litho Roadmap Remains Cloudy
By Mark LaPedus - 19 Sep, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus For some time, the lithography roadmap has been cloudy. Optical lithography has extended much further than expected. And delays with the various next-generation lithography (NGL) technologies have forced the industry to re-write the roadmap on multiple occasions. Today, there is more uncertainty than ever in lithography. Until recently, for example, leading-edge logic chipma... » read more

Keeping EUV Cool
By Katherine Derbyshire - 19 Sep, 2013 - Comments: 1

It’s been clear for a long time that EUV lithography sources will be fairly inefficient. The laser-produced plasma (LPP) source concept involves heating a droplet of metallic tin with a high-powered laser to produce a plasma. Only a fraction of the energy of the laser will be converted to light, rather than heat, and less than 1% of the light emitted by the plasma will be at EUV wavelengths. ... » read more

What’s After 3D NAND?
By Mark LaPedus - 19 Sep, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus Planar NAND flash memory is on its last scaling legs, with 3D NAND set to become the successor to the ubiquitous 2D technology. Samsung Electronics, for one, already has begun shipping the industry’s first 3D NAND device, a 24-level, 128-gigabit chip. In addition, Micron and SK Hynix shortly will ship their respective 3D NAND devices. But the Toshiba-SanDisk duo are the lo... » read more

450mm Is On Its Way!
By Adrienne Downey - 15 Aug, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Adrienne Downey Intel finally has taken the big plunge into 450mm manufacturing with the announcement of the start of construction of fab D1X Module 2. The company plans to spend $2 billion on construction of the new development fab this year alone. Its twin fab, Module 1, is 450mm-compatible, but will begin production later this year as a 300mm fab running a 14nm process technology. Intel�... » read more

Japan: Latest Investment Activities
By Dan Tracy - 15 Aug, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Dan Tracy and Yoichiro Ando Restructuring and consolidation has led to a new focus for the semiconductor manufacturers in Japan. As a result, the semiconductor equipment market in Japan will experience double-digit growth in both 2013 and 2014, driven by higher spending for memory production and in spending increases planned for the manufacturing of power semiconductors and “More than Moo... » read more

The Week In Review: July 22
By Mark LaPedus - 22 Jul, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus ASML Holding has been under pressure to bring extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography into mass production. EUV is still delayed. Now, in their latest roadmaps, leading-edge chipmakers are counting on ASML’s 300mm EUV scanner for insertion at the 10nm node. Yet, at the same time, ASML also is working on a 450mm version of the EUV tool. “EUV (on 300mm) is a higher priority th... » read more

Changes And Challenges
By Ed Sperling - 18 Jul, 2013 - Comments: 0

At 130nm, the shift to copper interconnects and 300mm wafer sizes was considered to be the most difficult transition in its long and incredibly efficient history. The next chapter will be even tougher. It’s not that change is a foreign concept to semiconductor design and manufacturing. In fact, it’s probably the only constant over the past 50 years. But in the past, those changes tended ... » read more

High NA EUV Litho May Require Larger Photomask Size
By Jeff Chappell - 18 Jul, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Jeff Chappell With extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) potentially being used in pilot production in a few years, it raises the question of larger photomasks sizes—will the industry need them, and if so, when? While there has been discussion of late about the possible need to transition to a larger mask size, veterans of the mask business may feel it's déjà vu all over again. Back... » read more

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