tag: IEDM

Reliability After Planar Silicon
By Katherine Derbyshire - 29 Jul, 2015 - Comments: 2

Negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) poses a very serious reliability challenge for highly scaled planar silicon transistors, as previously discussed. However, the conventional planar silicon transistor appears to be nearing the end of its life for other reasons, too. The mobility of carriers in silicon limits switching speed even as it becomes more difficult to maintain sufficient elec... » read more

How To Deal With Electromigration
By Katherine Derbyshire - 02 Mar, 2015 - Comments: 8

The replacement of aluminum with copper interconnect wiring, first demonstrated by IBM in 1997, brought the integrated circuit industry substantial improvements in both resistance to electromigration and line conductivity. Copper is both a better and more stable conductor than aluminum. Difficult though the transition was, it helped extend device scaling for another eighteen years (and counting... » read more

Darker Silicon
By Katherine Derbyshire - 29 Jan, 2015 - Comments: 0

For the last several decades, integrated circuit manufacturers have focused their efforts on [getkc id="74" comment="Moore's Law"], increasing transistor density at constant cost. For much of that time, Dennard’s Law also held: As the dimensions of a device go down, so does power consumption. Smaller transistors ran faster, used less power, and cost less. As most readers already know, howe... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Jan. 6
By Mark LaPedus - 06 Jan, 2015 - Comments: 1

Vertical SiC chips for electric cars Silicon carbide (SiC) is a promising material for power electronics. The material has a high breakdown voltage, high operating temperatures and a superior thermal conductivity. At the recent 2014 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in San Francisco, Toyota, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and the... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Dec. 30
By Mark LaPedus - 30 Dec, 2014 - Comments: 0

Mechanical switches For years, the industry has been talking about the use of advanced mechanical switches in low-power applications. In theory, mechanical switches have zero off-state leakages, abrupt ON/OFF switching capabilities and small voltage swings. Mechanical switches could overcome the energy efficiency limit of CMOS. In fact, mechanical switches could replace CMOS in some applica... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Dec. 23
By Mark LaPedus - 23 Dec, 2014 - Comments: 0

Higgs boson sensors At the recent 2014 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in San Francisco, CERN described the tiny hybrid pixel detectors used at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Using CMOS technology, hybrid pixel detectors identify and tag individual sub-atomic particles at fast speeds. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is a particle physics laboratory... » read more

Unraveling The Mysteries At IEDM
By Mark LaPedus - 19 Dec, 2014 - Comments: 0

In some respects, the 2014 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) was no different than past events. The event, held this week in San Francisco, included the usual and dizzying array of tutorials, sessions, papers and panels. On the leading-edge CMOS front, for example, the topics included [getkc id="82" kc_name="2.5D"]/[getkc id="42" kc_name="3D IC"] chips, III-V materials, [getkc ... » read more

Industry Scorecard For 2014
By Brian Bailey - 18 Dec, 2014 - Comments: 0

At the end of last year, Semiconductor Engineering asked the industry about the developments they expected to see in 2014. If you care to refresh your memory, they were categorized under markets, semiconductors and development tools. Now it is time to look back and see how accurate those predictions were and where they fell short. Markets The obvious trend, at the beginning of the year, wa... » read more

IBM, Intel And TSMC Roll Out finFETs
By Mark LaPedus - 14 Dec, 2014 - Comments: 0

At the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in San Franciso, IBM, Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) this week will separately present the latest details of their respective 16nm/14nm finFET technologies. As expected, Intel and TSMC will continue to use bulk CMOS. IBM will continue to go with rival silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology. At IEDM, Intel ... » read more

What’s Next For DNA Chips?
By Mark LaPedus - 11 Dec, 2014 - Comments: 0

The field of genomic personalized medicine is an emerging and promising area. Using lab systems called DNA sequencers, these units could provide vital information about an individual’s genetic makeup. In this area, several companies are developing next-generation DNA sequencers, built around CMOS-based semiconductor technology. But CMOS-based DNA sequencing chips, and the competing techno... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →

  • Sponsors

About

Navigation

Connect With Us

Copyright ©2013-2025 SMG   |  Terms of Service  |  Privacy Policy