Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers The Trump administration has held talks with Intel and TSMC to build more leading-edge fabs in the U.S., according to the Wall Street Journal and other news outlets. IC Insights has released its rankings of the top-10 chip vendors in terms of sales for the first quarter. Intel remains in first place, followed by Samsung and TSMC. The big surprise is China-based fabless IC supplie... » read more

Key Drivers In New Chip Industry Outlook


How well the semiconductor industry fares over the next 12 to 24 months depends upon the evolution of a virus. That alone will determine the correct model for an economic rebound — V, U, extended U, or maybe even a double U. But what's also becoming clear is those models don't apply uniformly to all sectors or sub-sectors of the semiconductor industry. Looked at as a whole, the entire indu... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Market research The coronavirus pandemic continues to reduce the outlook for worldwide GDP as well as the electronics and IC markets. For example, IC Insights has lowered its IC forecast from 3% to minus 4% in 2020. The IC market is now expected to hit $345.8 billion in 2020, which is $39.0 billion less than the original forecast, which called for an 8% increase this year. Due to the imp... » read more

Reliability Challenges Grow For 5/3nm


Ensuring that chips will be reliable at 5nm and 3nm is becoming more difficult due to the introduction of new materials, new transistor structures, and the projected use of these chips in safety- and mission-critical applications. Each of these elements adds its own set of challenges, but they are being compounded by the fact that many of these chips will end up in advanced packages or modul... » read more

Service Agreements For Probe Systems


Having a Probe Systems Service Agreements can bring simplicity and peace of mind when it comes to keeping equipment operating at optimum performance. We take the guesswork out of maintenance budgeting by providing parts and labor coverage at a single, low cost. Priority service and part delivery eliminates time wasted waiting for maintenance or repair parts. Comprehensive, scheduled preve... » read more

The Story Behind Advanced Packaging, Heterogeneous Integration and Test


The introduction of AMD’S FIJI chip a few years ago marked an important technology turning point for the semiconductor industry. This revolutionary graphics product delivered capability and innovation by relying on the first commercial example of 2.5D heterogenous integration, featuring a GPU assembled with High-Bandwidth-Memory (HBM) using Through-Silicon-Via (TSV) interconnect and interpose... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


The coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to have an impact on most, if not all, industries. This includes the electronics, semiconductor and related segments. International Data Corp. (IDC) has released a report on the company’s view on the impact the COVID-19 virus will have on the semiconductor market. The report provides a framework to evaluate the market impact through four scenarios. "... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Market research The coronavirus is having a major impact on the semiconductor, smartphone and related markets. For example, global fab equipment spending promises to rebound from its 2019 downturn and see a modest recovery this year, according to a report from SEMI. But the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has eroded fab equipment spending in China and elsewhere in 2020, according to the rep... » read more

Grading Chips For Longer Lifetimes


Figuring out how to grade chips is becoming much more difficult as these chips are used in applications where they are supposed to last for decades rather than just a couple of years. During manufacturing, semiconductors typically are run through a battery of tests involving performance and power, and then priced accordingly. But that is no longer a straightforward process for several reason... » read more

Wafer Test Challenges For Chiplets


In a heterogeneous integrated system, the impact of composite yield fallout due to a single chiplet is creating new performance imperatives for wafer test in terms of test complexity and coverage. From a test perspective, making chiplets a mainstream technology depends on ensuring Good Enough Die at a reasonable test cost. Wafer-level test plays a critical and intricate role in the chipl... » read more

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