BEOL Barricades Ahead


Coventor recently assembled an expert panel at IEDM 2016, to discuss changes to BEOL process technology that would be needed to continue dimensional scaling to 7 nm and lower. Among the questions posed to panelists: What is BEOL? Where does it begin and end? Are there fundamental limits to interconnect processes? How much longer can we continue to use current interconnect processes and ... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Chipmakers At this week’s IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in San Francisco, TSMC as well as the team of GlobalFoundries, IBM and Samsung separately presented papers on 7nm finFET technology. Qualcomm has begun sampling the world’s first 10nm server processor. As the first in the Qualcomm Centriq product family, the ARM-based processor has up to 48-cores and is built ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Dec. 6


The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (MagLab) has broken an unofficial record for the world’s most powerful hybrid magnet. The 33-ton system, called the series connected hybrid (SCH) magnet, has reached its full field strength of 36 tesla. The SCH is more than 40% stronger than the previous world-record hybrid magnet. Tesla, or T, is the measurement of magnetic field strength. A ref... » read more

IoT Security Risks Grow


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss security issues with Asaf Shen, vice president of marketing for security IP in [getentity id="22186" comment="ARM"]'s Systems & Software Group; Timothy Dry, principal staff marketing manager for the Industrial IoT segment at GlobalFoundries; Chowdary Yanamadala, senior vice president of business development at [getentity id="22819" comment="Glob... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Manufacturing There are more changes at SEMI. SEMI has named David Anderson as president of the SEMI Americas region. Most recently, Anderson was chief executive and chairman of Novati, a specialty manufacturing fab. He replaces Karen Savala, who was president of the SEMI Americas region for six years. In an e-mail, Savala confirmed she left SEMI in October. Meanwhile, in October, SEMI an... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Deals Kilopass extended its deal with ICScape, which makes a Parallel SPICE simulator, for eNVM IP at advanced finFET nodes. Kilopass has been working with ICScape for the past couple of years as part of its qualification methodology. IP Silvaco released three MIPI I3C sensor controller IP cores. Developed with NXP to push adoption of I3C, the new products are an Advanced Slave core wi... » read more

Blog Review: Nov. 30


Cadence's Paul McLellan presents a three-part series on the future of EDA, with insights from both academia and industry. Mentor's Harry Foster focuses on power management trends in ASIC design, in the latest installment of the 2016 Wilson Research Group verification study. Plus, what aspects of power are verified and how designers describe power intent. Synopsys' Robert Vamosi reports th... » read more

Multi-Patterning Issues At 7nm, 5nm


Continuing to rely on 193nm immersion lithography with multiple patterning is becoming much more difficult at 7nm and 5nm. With the help of various resolution enhancement techniques, optical lithography using a deep ultraviolet excimer laser has been the workhorse patterning technology in the fab since the early 1980s. It is so closely tied with the continuation of [getkc id="74" comment="Mo... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


R&D Amid budget cuts in the U.S. government, federal funding for R&D at higher education institutions in the United States declined for a fourth straight year, according to a new report from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES). Overall, universities reported $68.8 billion in R&D expenditures in 2015, a 2.2% increase from 2014, according to the NCSES, part of t... » read more

Can We Measure Next-Gen FinFETs?


After ramping up their respective 16nm/14nm finFET processes, chipmakers are moving towards 10nm and/or 7nm, with 5nm in R&D. But as they move down the process roadmap, they will face a new set of fab challenges. In addition to lithography and interconnects, there is metrology. Metrology, the science of measurements, is used to characterize tiny films and structures. It helps to boost yi... » read more

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