Chip Industry Week In Review


The EU Commission approved €920 million in German State aid to support Infineon in setting up its Smart Power Fab in Dresden. Total funding for the Dresden site amounts to about €1 billion. PDF Solutions will acquire secureWISE for $130 million to expand the reach of its semiconductor manufacturing data platform, providing secure, remote access monitoring and control. Tariffs, trade, and ... » read more

Interconnects Approach Tipping Point


As leading devices move to next generation nanosheets for logic, their interconnections are getting squeezed past the point where they can deliver low resistance pathways. The 1nm (10Å) node will have 20nm pitch and larger metal lines, but the interconnect stack already consumes a third of device power and accounts for 75% of the chip's RC delay. Changing this dynamic requires a superior co... » read more

Mechanical Stress In Semiconductor Development


With the semiconductor industry moving toward 3D DRAM, 3D logic architectures, and 1000+ layer 3D NAND stacks,1 mechanical failures may become more common. Due to the complexity of these structures, mechanical stress from materials processing has the potential to significantly impact yield. 3D processing techniques (etching, deposition, and related chemistries), as well as material property de... » read more

EUV’s Future Looks Even Brighter


The rapidly increasing demand for advanced-node chips to support everything-AI is putting pressure on the industry's ability to meet demand. The need for cutting-edge semiconductors is accelerating in applications ranging from hyperscale data centers powering large language models to edge AI in smartphones, IoT devices, and autonomous systems. But manufacturing those chips relies heavily on ... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


Worldwide silicon wafer shipments declined nearly 2.7% to 12,266 million square inches in 2024, with wafer revenue contracting 6.5% to $11.5 billion, according to the SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group. CSIS released a new report, “Critical Minerals and the Future of the U.S. Economy,” with detailed analysis and policy recommendations for building a secure mineral supply chain for semicond... » read more

Research Bits: Feb. 10


Speeding up 3D NAND etch Researchers from Lam Research, the University of Colorado Boulder, and Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) investigated ways to speed up the cryogenic reactive ion etching process for 3D NAND by using a combined hydrogen fluoride gas to create the plasma. “Cryo etch with the hydrogen fluoride plasma showed a significant increase in the etching rate compared... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


Chinese startup DeepSeek rattled the tech world and U.S. stock market with claims it spent just $5.6 million on compute power for its AI model compared to its billion-dollar rivals in the U.S. The announcement raised questions about U.S. investment strategies in AI infrastructure and led to an initial $600 billion selloff of NVIDIA stock. Since its launch, DeepSeek reportedly was hit by malicio... » read more

Assembly Design Rules Slowly Emerge


Process design kits (PDKs) play an essential in ensuring that silicon technology can proceed from one generation to the next in a manner that design tools can keep up with. No such infrastructure has been needed for packaging in the past, but that's beginning to change with advanced packages. Heterogeneous assemblies are still ramping up, but their benefits are attracting new designs. “Chi... » read more

Less Waste, Faster Results: Why Virtual Twins Are Critical To Future Semiconductor R&D


By Wojciech (Wojtek) Osowiecki, Martyn Coogans, Saravanapriyan Sriraman, Rakesh Ranjan, Yu (Joe) Lu, and David M. Fried The semiconductor industry has long depended on physical experimentation to achieve the precision needed for advanced chip manufacturing. However, this traditional method comes with significant environmental costs—high energy consumption, material waste, and greenhouse ga... » read more

Global IC Fabs And Facilities Report: 2024


The chip industry made significant capital investments this year to build new fabs and facilities or expand existing premises. A number of sites were dedicated to SiC, GaN, DRAM, HBM, along with packaging and assembly by OSATs, and essential gases, chemicals, and other components. More than a dozen R&D centers were also established for 8-inch wafers, EUV, and advanced packaging. Investments... » read more

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