Chip Industry Week In Review


Deals Marvell acquired Polariton Technologies, a Swiss developer of plasmonics-based silicon photonics devices. Onto Innovation is partnering with Rigaku, combining Onto’s analysis software with Rigaku’s CD-SAXS platform for advanced semiconductor process control. Onto also agreed to acquire a 27% stake in Rigaku for about $710M. Tesla plans to use Intel’s 14A process for its T... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


The IEEE ISSCC conference was held this week in San Francisco. Among the highlights: IBM detailed an AI accelerator based on its new inferencing dataflow architecture. CEA-Leti presented a chip-scale, ultra-fast, battery-operated EPR spectrometer. QuTech introduced a cryo-CMOS SoC with NV centers in diamond. UTokyo showed its low-jitter PLL architecture for beyond 5G/6G. Imec d... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


Major Deals: Taiwan-based UMC is exploring possible collaboration with Polar Semiconductor for high-volume production of 8-inch wafers at Polar’s expanded Minnesota fab, a move that could provide domestic manufacturing capacity for automotive, data center, consumer, aerospace, and defense customers. Marvell will acquire Celestial AI for $3.25B, adding photonic fabric technology for o... » read more

Transferable Hybrid Bonding Technique That Allows For High Integration Density In Advanced Packaging


A technical paper titled "Hierarchical Multi-Layer and Stacking Vias with Novel Structure by Transferrable Cu/Polymer Hybrid Bonding for High Speed Digital Applications" was published by researchers at Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and Brewer Science. The paper demonstrates a "novel structure with hierarchical multi-layer stacking vias as well as transferred hybrid bonding,... » read more

Chip Industry Technical Paper Roundup: August 11


New technical papers recently added to Semiconductor Engineering’s library: [table id=463 /] Find more semiconductor research papers here. » read more

Novel Assembly Approaches For 3D Device Stacks


The next big leap in semiconductor packaging will require a slew of new technologies, processes, and materials, but collectively they will enable orders of magnitude improvement in performance that will be essential for the AI age. Not all of these issues are fully solved but the recent Electronic Components Technology Conference (ECTC) provided a glimpse into the huge leaps in progress that... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


By Jesse Allen, Gregory Haley, and Liz Allan Synopsys will acquire Ansys for about $35 billion in cash and stock. The deal will boost Synopsys' multi-physics simulation capabilities, which are essential for complex 3D-IC designs, where thermal density can have significant repercussions. The acquisition is expected to be finalized in the first half of 2025. Worldwide semiconductor revenue ... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Some funding details are now available for the CHIPS Act in the U.S. The Biden Administration plans to spend the money in the following ways: $28 billion to establish domestic production of leading-edge logic and memory chips through grants, subsidized loans or loan guarantees; $10 billion to increase production of current-generation semiconductors and chips, and $11 billion for rese... » read more

Study Of Bondable Laser Release Material Using 355nm Energy To Facilitate RDL-First And Die-First Fan-Out Wafer-Level Packaging (FOWLP)


A thorough evaluation on selecting a bondable laser release material for redistribution layer (RDL)-first and die-first fan-out wafer-level packaging (FOWLP) is presented in this article. Four laser release materials were identified based on their absorption coefficient at 355 nm. In addition, all four of these materials possess thermal stability above 350 °C and pull-off adhesion on a Ti/Cu l... » 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

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