tag: inspection

Can Fine-Pitch Hybrid Bonding Go High Volume?
By Gregory Haley - 16 Jul, 2026 - Comments: 0

Key Takeaways: Fine-pitch hybrid bonding extends a proven production technology into a manufacturing regime with much smaller margins for particles, surface variation, distortion, and placement error. Die-to-wafer integration allows known-good-die selection, but it exchanges wafer-level parallelism for repeated handling, alignment, and bonding operations. Reaching high volume will de... » read more

Photoluminescence Inspection Is Changing How Manufacturers Protect Yield In SiC And GaN Devices
By Jason Lin - 07 Jul, 2026 - Comments: 0

Electric vehicles, fast-charging infrastructure, renewable energy systems, and industrial power conversion are redefining what power semiconductors need to deliver: higher voltages, higher power densities, faster switching, and longer lifetimes. To meet these demands, manufacturers are increasingly turning to wide-bandgap materials like silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN). SiC ha... » read more

When The Test Cell Lies
By Gregory Haley - 07 Jul, 2026 - Comments: 0

Key Takeaways:   A marginal test result can be electrically valid and still diagnostically misleading because the socket, load board, and thermal loop are now part of the measurement.   Separating device drift from test-cell drift depends on tracking margins, variance, and calibration trends rather than bins alone.   In advanced packages, a false pass destroys value downstream, ... » read more

Microchip Manufacturing: Understanding The Semiconductor Manufacturing Process
By Jeanine Norlin - 07 Jul, 2026 - Comments: 0

Over the past several decades, the semiconductor industry has experienced sustained growth. Early expansion was driven by the widespread adoption of personal computers, while today demand is fueled by mobile devices, cloud computing, electric vehicles, and advanced connectivity. As these technologies evolve, semiconductor manufacturing must support higher performance, greater device density,... » read more

AI Models Transform Defect Inspection And Review, But Can Fail To Scale
By Laura Peters - 09 Jun, 2026 - Comments: 0

Key Takeaways: AI plays a role in improving defect capture rate and distinguishing between yield-killing and nuisance defects. New developments in wafer edge inspection are proving essential to bonded wafer yields. 70% of AI initiatives stall after pilot implementation, but some pitfalls can be avoided. One of the brightest spots in AI use today is the industry’s ability t... » read more

Enhancing High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) Reliability With 3D X-ray Inspection
By Chris Rand - 09 Jun, 2026 - Comments: 0

High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) is revolutionizing AI, high-performance computing, and advanced graphics systems. Its 3D architecture—stacked DRAM dies interconnected via through-silicon vias (TSVs)—delivers exceptional bandwidth and efficiency. But this complexity introduces new challenges for inspection and quality assurance. Why 3D X-ray for HBM? Traditional 2D X-ray imaging cannot fully v... » read more

Enabling Production-Ready AI For Semiconductor Manufacturing
By Tareq Aljaber - 21 May, 2026 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor inspection has always been a scalability problem. Inspection teams are buried in manual reviews because the machines on the line throw false rejects, miss real defects, and can't learn from the data they're already producing. The job hasn't really changed in decades. Find defects faster. Find them with higher sensitivity. Keep cost down. And whatever you do, don't bury the review ... » read more

The Specialty Device Surge Part 3: Solving The Process Control Challenges Of MEMS, Photonics, Co-Packaged Optics, And More
By Christopher Haire - 12 May, 2026 - Comments: 0

Every day, consumers rely on an invisible network of specialty semiconductor devices without realizing it. The smartphone in your pocket is a good place to start. It knows when you rotate the screen thanks to MEMS sensors, and its camera delivers crisp images through advanced CMOS image sensors. Meanwhile, fast charging technology, wireless connectivity, facial recognition, and high-frequency c... » read more

Research Bits: May 11
By Jesse Allen - 11 May, 2026 - Comments: 0

Non-destructive terahertz inspection Researchers from Adelaide University, Virginia Diodes, the Hasso Plattner Institute, and the University of Potsdam used terahertz waves to observe electrical activity inside fully packaged semiconductor devices as they are operating. The technique relies on an ultra-sensitive detection system using a specialized homodyne quadrature receiver, which can pi... » read more

The Smart Advantage: How Artificial Intelligence Is Transforming Inspection And Metrology In Semiconductor Manufacturing
By Charlie Zhu - 14 Apr, 2026 - Comments: 0

There is no doubt that the semiconductor industry is in an era of rapid and profound transformation, driven by an increasing demand for smaller, faster, and more powerful chips. As the speed of innovation continues to advance, so does the pressure on semiconductor manufacturers to detect and address defects and inconsistencies with near-perfect accuracy to keep pace with this demand. Manual ... » read more

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