Advanced Packaging Is Real. Now What?


For the past five years, it's been clear that 2.5D, fan-outs and other forms of system-in-package were on the horizon. Exactly when they would arrive no one knew. The most common prediction was that the timing would depend on when one of the big chipmakers decided to go down that route. The theory was that the remainder of the industry would follow, ecosystem issues would be sorted out—partic... » read more

Thinking Outside The Chip


Intel will begin adding 2.5D and 3D packaging into its processors, following the lead set by IBM and AMD in recognizing that new packaging approaches are essential for improving performance and lowering power. This shift won't derail the semiconductor industry's efforts to the reach future process nodes or continually shrink features, but it does add context for other factors that in... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


2016 is starting off on the wrong foot. Samsung disclosed its preliminary results for the forth quarter. Samsung expects a difficult business environment in 2016, according to reports. Plus, Apple is seeing lower than expected demand. “We are lowering our March quarter iPhone units to 45M units (prior 54M) to reflect incremental softness and recent production cuts. Our sense is that iPhones a... » read more

Upcoming Hurdles For The Semiconductor Industry


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss upcoming challenges and hurdles to overcome for the semiconductor industry with Vic Kulkarni, senior vice president and general manager, RTL Power Business at Ansys; Chris Rowen, Fellow and CTO, IP Group at Cadence; Subramani Kengeri, vice president, Global Design Solutions at GLOBALFOUNDRIES; Simon Davidmann, CEO of Imperas Software; Michael Buehle... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


South Korea’s SK Hynix led the initial charge in the development of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), a 3D DRAM technology based on a memory stack and through-silicon vias (TSVs). SK Hynix has been shipping HBM parts in the market. Now, SK Hynix and Samsung are readying the next version of the technology, dubbed High Bandwidth Memory 2 or HMB2, according to a report from The Electronic Times of So... » read more

Fab Tool Biz Looks Cloudy


Amid a slowdown in the foundry and DRAM sectors, the outlook for the semiconductor equipment industry looks somewhat cloudy, if not challenging, in 2016. In fact, for equipment vendors, 2016 could resemble the lackluster year in 2015. In 2015, for example, capital spending in the foundry sector fell during the year, although NAND flash began to pick up steam. In 2015, though, the big stor... » read more

Foundries Face Challenges in 2016


Generally, 2015 has been a challenging year in the foundry business. For one thing, the foundry industry will register modest growth in 2015. In addition, the foundry customer base is consolidating. And on the leading edge, foundries took longer than expected to ramp up their 16nm/14nm finFET processes. So, after an eventful year in 2015, what’s in store for the foundry business in 2016? I... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


For years, China has been trying to get a domestic IC equipment industry off the ground, but it has experienced modest success in the arena. Now, China may take a new strategy—acquire fab tool makers. In what could be a sign of things to come, China’s Beijing E-Town Dragon Semiconductor Industry Investment Center has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire U.S.-based fab tool vendor ... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


At one time, China’s Xiaomi was a high-flying smartphone vendor. The privately-held company had a market capitalization of $45 billion. But the bottom has fallen out of the company amid share losses. “By early 2015, it was clear that problems were emerging as growth ground to a halt and nothing that Xiaomi has done since has been able to re-start it. Xiaomi has ground to halt because there ... » read more

Top Articles For 2015 In SLD And LPHP


Knowing your readership is the first step in being able to serve them better, and judging by the traffic increases this year, we must be doing quite a few things right. We have now completed our second full year and the first full year for the Knowledge Center (KC). We are pleased with the way in which the two are playing together but there is still a lot of work ahead of and many holes to fill... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →