tag: III-V materials

What’s After FinFETs?
By Mark LaPedus - 24 Jul, 2017 - Comments: 3

Chipmakers are readying their next-generation technologies based on 10nm and/or 7nm finFETs, but it's still not clear how long the finFET will last, how long the 10nm and 7nm nodes for high-end devices will be extended, and what comes next. The industry faces a multitude of uncertainties and challenges at 5nm, 3nm and beyond. Even today, traditional chip scaling continues to slow as process ... » read more

Foundries Accelerate Auto Efforts
By Mark LaPedus - 20 Jul, 2017 - Comments: 0

Foundries are ramping up their efforts in automotive chip production in preparation for a surge in semiconductors used in assisted and autonomous driving. All of the major foundry vendors are scrambling to assemble the pieces and expand their process portfolios for automotive customers. The foundries are seeing a growing demand from automotive IC customers amid the push toward advanced drive... » read more

What’s Next In Scaling, Stacking
By Mark LaPedus - 05 Jun, 2017 - Comments: 9

An Steegen, executive vice president of semiconductor technology and systems at [getentity id="22217" e_name="Imec"], sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to discuss IC scaling, chip stacking, packaging and other topics. Imec is an R&D organization in Belgium. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: Chipmakers are shipping 16nm/14nm processes with 10nm and 7nm technologies... » read more

TFETs Cut Sub-Threshold Swing
By Katherine Derbyshire - 16 Mar, 2017 - Comments: 0

One of the main obstacles to continued transistor scaling is power consumption. As gate length decreases, the sub-threshold swing (SS) — the gate voltage required to change the drain current by one order of magnitude — increases. As Qin Zhang, Wei Zhao, and Alan Seabaugh of Notre Dame explained in 2006, SS faces a theoretical minimum of 60 mV/decade at room temperature in conventional MO... » read more

Uncertainty Grows For 5nm, 3nm
By Mark LaPedus - 19 Dec, 2016 - Comments: 4

As several chipmakers ramp up their 10nm finFET processes, with 7nm just around the corner, R&D has begun for 5nm and beyond. In fact, some are already moving full speed ahead in the arena. [getentity id="22586" comment="TSMC"] recently announced plans to build a new fab in Taiwan at a cost of $15.7 billion. The proposed fab is targeted to manufacture TSMC’s 5nm and 3nm processes, whic... » read more

GaN Power Semi Biz Heats Up
By Mark LaPedus - 24 Oct, 2016 - Comments: 0

The market for devices based on gallium nitride (GaN) technology is heating up amid the push for faster and more power efficient systems. Today, [getkc id="217" kc_name="GaN"] is widely used in the production of LEDs. In addition, it is gaining steam in the radio-frequency (RF) market. And the GaN-based power semiconductor market finally appears ready to take off, after several false starts ... » read more

Focus Shifting To Photonics
By Ed Sperling - 17 Aug, 2016 - Comments: 4

Silicon photonics finally appears ready for prime time, after years of unfulfilled expectations and a vision that stretches back at least a couple decades. The biggest challenge has been the ability to build a light source directly into the silicon process, rather than trying to add one onto a chip after manufacturing. [getentity id="22846" e_name="Intel"] today said it has achieved that mi... » read more

RF GaN Gains Steam
By Mark LaPedus - 25 Jul, 2016 - Comments: 0

The RF [getkc id="217" kc_name="gallium nitride"] (GaN) device market is heating up amid the need for more performance with better power densities in a range of systems, such as infrastructure equipment, missile defense and radar. On one front, for example, RF GaN is beginning to displace a silicon-based technology for the power amplifier sockets in today’s wireless base stations. GaN is m... » read more

Atomic Layer Etch Heats Up
By Mark LaPedus - 29 Jun, 2016 - Comments: 0

The atomic layer etch (ALE) market is starting to heat up as chipmakers push to 10nm and beyond. ALE is a promising next-generation etch technology that has been in R&D for the last several years, but until now there has been little or no need to use it. Unlike conventional etch tools, which remove materials on a continuous basis, ALE promises to selectively and precisely remove targete... » read more

Photonics Moves Closer To Chip
By Ed Sperling - 20 Jun, 2016 - Comments: 0

Silicon photonics is resurfacing after more than a decade in the shadows, driven by demands to move larger quantities of data faster, using extremely low power and with minimal heat. Until recently, much of the attention in photonics focused on moving data between servers and storage. Now there is growing interest at the PCB level and in heterogeneous multi-chip packages. Government, academi... » read more

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