MOCVD Vendors Eye New Apps


Several equipment makers are developing or ramping up new metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) systems in the market, hoping to capture the next wave of growth applications in the arena. Competition is fierce among the various MOCVD equipment suppliers in the market, namely Aixtron, AMEC and Veeco. In addition, MOCVD equipment suppliers are looking for renewed growth in 2020, but b... » read more

Demand Picks Up For 200mm


Demand is growing for both 200mm fab capacity and equipment, setting the stage for possible shortages in coming months. But there are also some uncertainties, if not warning signs, in the 200mm market and the entire IC industry. Trade disputes, as well as the current coronavirus outbreak in China, likely will impact the chip and equipment markets. The size of the impact and the duration rema... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers and OEMs IC Insights has released its rankings of the 25 largest wafer capacity leaders in terms of monthly installed capacity in 200mm-equivalents as of December 2019. Samsung was in first place, followed by TSMC, Micron, SK Hynix, and Kioxia, formerly Toshiba Memory, according to IC Insights. Combined capacity of the top five companies represented 53% of total global wafer capa... » read more

Blog Review: Feb. 12


Complexity is growing by process node, by end application, and in each design. The latest crop of blogs points to just how many dependencies and uncertainties exist today, and what the entire supply chain is doing about them. Mentor's Shivani Joshi digs into various types of constraints in PCBs. Cadence's Neelabh Singh examines the complexities of verifying a lane adapter state machine in... » read more

Extreme Quality Semiconductor Manufacturing


By Ben Tsai and Cathy Perry Sullivan Across the full range of semiconductor device types and design nodes, there is a drive to produce chips with significantly higher quality. Automotive, IoT and other industrial applications require chips that achieve very high reliability over a long period of time, and some of these chips must maintain reliable performance while operating in an environmen... » read more

Failure Analysis Becoming Critical To Reliability


Failure analysis is rapidly becoming a complex, costly and increasingly time-consuming must-do task as demand rises for reliability across a growing range of devices used in markets ranging from automotive to 5G. From the beginning, failure analysis has been about finding out what went wrong in semiconductor design and manufacturing. Different approaches, tools and equipment have improved ov... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Fab tools Citing the outbreak of the coronavirus in China, SEMI has postponed Semicon/FPD China 2020 and related events originally scheduled for March 18-20, 2020. For the same reason, SEMI will no longer host Semicon Korea 2020 in Seoul, South Korea, February 5-7, as originally scheduled. ------------------------------- Veeco has introduced the new Lumina Metal Organic Chemical Vapor De... » read more

SiC Foundry Business Emerges


Several third-party foundry vendors are entering or expanding their efforts in the silicon carbide (SiC) business amid booming demand for the technology. However, making a significant dent in the market will not be so easy for SiC foundry vendors and their customers. They are facing stiff competition from traditional SiC device vendors such as Cree, Infineon, Rohm and STMicroelectronics. ... » read more

Finding Defects In EUV Masks


Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography is finally in production at advanced nodes, but there are still several challenges with the technology, such as EUV mask defects. Defects are unwanted deviations in chips, which can impact yield and performance. They can crop up during the chip manufacturing process, including the production of a mask or photomask, sometimes called a reticle. Fortunately... » read more

5/3nm Wars Begin


Several foundries are ramping up their new 5nm processes in the market, but now customers must decide whether to design their next chips around the current transistor type or move to a different one at 3nm and beyond. The decision involves the move to extend today’s finFETs to 3nm, or to implement a new technology called gate-all-around FETs (GAA FETs) at 3nm or 2nm. An evolutionary step f... » read more

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