Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Fabs Intel has announced plans for an initial investment of more than $20 billion in the construction of two new leading-edge fabs in Ohio. Planning for the first two factories will start immediately, with construction expected to begin late in 2022. Production is expected to come online in 2025. As part of the announcement, Air Products, Applied Materials, Lam Research and Ultra Clean Technol... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers, OEMs TSMC reported sales of $15.736 billion for the fourth quarter of 2021, up 5.7% sequentially. Net income grew 6.4% quarter-over-quarter. In the fourth quarter, shipments of 5nm accounted for 23% of total wafer revenues, while 7nm accounted for 27%. In the first quarter of 2022, TSMC’s sales are expected to be between $16.6 billion to $17.2 billion. TSMC also expects its 20... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Fab tools A fire broke out this week within ASML’s factory in Berlin, Germany. The fire was quickly extinguished and no one was injured during this incident. The factory manufactures components for ASML’s lithography systems, including wafer tables and clamps, reticle chucks and mirror blocks. The fire took place on Jan. 3. On Jan. 7, ASML provided an update. "The manufacturing of DUV c... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


SK Hynix completed the first phase of its acquisition of Intel's NAND and SSD business. In this first step it took control Intel’s SSD business and the Dalian NAND flash manufacturing facility in China, for a price of $7 billion. Next, it will acquire from Intel the remaining assets in relation to its NAND business, including IP related to the manufacture and design of NAND flash wafers, R&am... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Automotive As part of its in-cabin monitoring wares at Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2022, U.S.-based Gentex demonstrated the Vaporsens gas sensors, a nanofiber chemical sensor technology that monitors cabin air quality and can ID airborne contaminants. One use would be to monitor if outside contaminants get into the cabin, the sensor could trigger the car to turn on the recirculation of air... » read more

Expanding Advanced Packaging Production In The U.S.


The United States is taking the first steps toward bringing larger-scale IC packaging production capabilities back to the U.S. as supply chain concerns and trade tensions grow. The U.S. is among the leaders in developing packages, especially new and advanced forms of the technology that promise to shake up the semiconductor landscape. And while the U.S. has several packaging vendors, North A... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers TSMC has introduced another version of its 4nm process technology. The process, called N4X, is tailored for high-performance computing products. Recently, TSMC introduced another 4nm process, called N4P, which is an enhanced version of its 5nm technology. N4X is also an enhanced version of its 5nm technology. N4X, however, offers a performance boost of up to 15% over TSMC’s N5 pro... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


NASA plans to launch the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) this Saturday, Dec 25, on an European Space Agency (ESA) rocket. Mission-critical radiation-hardened components from IR HiRel, an Infineon company, will go up with the JWST. IR HiRel space-grade DC-DC converters, rad hard MOSFETs and other power control products are in the spacecraft bus subsystems, such as electrical power, altitude co... » read more

Next Steps For Panel-Level Packaging


Tanja Braun, group manager at Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration (IZM), sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about III-V device packaging, chiplets, fan-out and panel-level processing. Fraunhofer IZM recently announced a new phase of its panel-level packaging consortium. What follows are excerpts of that discussion. SE: IC packaging isn’t new, but years a... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers Chip investments in Malaysia got a shot in the arm this week. First, Intel has announced plans to invest more than RM30 billion, or US$7 billion, within its Malaysian packaging and test facilities. The additional investment will help expand Intel Malaysia’s operations across Penang and Kulim. This new investment is expected to create over 4,000 Intel jobs as well as over 5,000 con... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →