Will Materials Derail Moore’s Law?


Is Moore’s Law slowing down? Clearly, chipmakers are struggling to keep up with Moore’s Law these days. But one sometimes forgotten and critical technology could easily derail Moore’s Law--materials. In fact, the cost and complexity for electronic materials are increasing at each node. “Chemical and gas commodity procurement spends are growing rapidly due to process complexity and un... » read more

A Decade At The Ceiling


This month marks the tenth anniversary of the introduction of the Intel Pentium 4 HT 570J, which had an advertised operating frequency of 3.8 GHz. It was manufactured in a 90nm process, had a VID voltage range of 1.2V-1.425V and was rated at 115W TDP. In a previous article, Power to Fly, we looked at the graph that I’m including again here below for reference. The microprocessor indu... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


STMicroelectronics announced mixed results for the quarter. The company also launched a plan to cut $100 million in costs. As part of the plan, it is reviewing the implications to its process technology efforts following the recent announcements by its research alliance partners, namely IBM. STMicro is one of the main drivers of FDSOI technology. The company’s FDSOI partner is IBM, which is s... » read more

Applied-TEL Deal Faces Delays


Applied Materials’ proposed move to acquire rival Tokyo Electron Ltd. (TEL) faces a possible delay. The blockbuster deal could get pushed out until next year amid a host of complicated regulatory issues. As reported in September of 2013, Applied Materials announced a definitive agreement to acquire TEL in a stock deal valued at around $9.3 billion. Under the terms, Applied Materials would ... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


After months of on-again, off-again negotiations, IBM agreed to hand over its Microelectronics unit to GlobalFoundries for $1.5 billion—meaning IBM will actually pay GlobalFoundries that amount to get rid of what has become an albatross for Big Blue. Analyst Jim McGregor said it is only a matter of time before GlobalFoundries shuts down IBM’s fabs, according to the Albany Business Review... » read more

IBM Unloads Chip Biz To GF


By Ed Sperling & Mark LaPedus After months of on-again, off-again negotiations, [getentity id="22306" comment="IBM"] agreed to hand over its Microelectronics unit to [getentity id="22819" comment="GlobalFoundries"] for $1.5 billion—meaning IBM will actually pay GlobalFoundries that amount to get rid of what has become an albatross for Big Blue. To really sweeten the deal, GlobalFoundr... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


It’s official: IBM appears to be exiting the chip business. After months of talks, IBM has agreed to pay GlobalFoundries $1.5 billion to take Big Blue’s chip unit off its hands, according to reports from Bloomberg. IBM will also receive $200 million worth of assets, according to the reports. At the upcoming IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), Intel and IBM will present... » read more

Big Data In The Fab


A modern fab is a very complicated place, with a huge amount of information required to correctly process wafers. But even more data is created to characterize the equipment and wafers. The idea is if there is complete knowledge of the fab then everything should be predictable, including yield, and running it an optimal fashion is possible. The challenges with big data all revolve around co... » read more

EUV Still Matters…But Less


For all the chatter and occasional tirades about EUV missing its market window—it's true, EUV will have missed five market windows by 10nm—it still matters. And the sooner EUV hits the market with a viable power source, the better off the entire semiconductor manufacturing industry will be. But even EUV is a sideshow to some important shifts underway in technology. While technologically ... » read more

Time To Look At SOI Again


Chipmakers have the luxury of looking at several process options when developing chips at the 28nm node and beyond. Using bulk CMOS, for example, chipmakers can scale planar transistors down to 20nm. Then, at 20nm, planar runs out of gas due to the so-called short-channel effect. At that point, IC makers must migrate towards finFETs at 16nm/14nm and beyond. Another process option is fully... » read more

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