Blog Review: Nov. 16


Siemens EDA's Jake Wiltgen explains the difference between transient and permanent faults when designing to the ISO 26262 standard, including where they come from and key ways to protect against them. Synopsys' Vikas Gautam points to how the economics of designing large SoCs is driving chiplet-based designs and the need for die-to-die standards such as UCIe, along with the key protocol verif... » read more

Blog Review: Nov. 9


Cadence's Claire Ying finds that the latest update to CXL, which introduced memory-centric fabric architectures and expanded capabilities for improving scale and optimizing resource utilization, could change how some of the world’s largest data centers and fastest supercomputers are built. Synopsys' Gervais Fong and Morten Christiansen examine the latest updates in the USB 80Gbps specifica... » read more

Legacy Tools, New Tricks: Optical 3D Inspection


Stacking chips is making it far more difficult to find existing and latent defects, and to check for things like die shift, leftover particles from other processes, co-planarity of bumps, and adhesion of different materials such as dielectrics. There are several main problems: Not everything is visible from a single angle, particularly when vertical structures are used; Various struc... » read more

Week In Review: Semiconductor Manufacturing, Test


Nikkei Asia reports the U.S. is urging allies, including Japan, to restrict exports of advanced semiconductors and related technology to China. The U.S. holds 12% of the global semiconductor market, Japan has a 15% share, while Taiwan and South Korea each have about a 20% share. Some U.S. companies have called for other countries to adopt U.S.-style export curbs, arguing it is unfair for only A... » read more

Chip Industry Earnings: A Mixed Bag


Editor's Note: Updated the week of Oct. 31 and Nov. 7 for additional earnings releases. Although most companies reported revenue growth, this latest round of chip industry earnings releases reflected a few major themes: Lower future quarter guidance to varying degrees, due to the recent U.S. export restrictions related to China; Negative impact of the inflationary environment on corn... » read more

Week In Review: Semiconductor Manufacturing, Test


Fallout from the new U.S. export controls continues. Under new regulations, companies looking to supply Chinese chipmakers with advanced manufacturing equipment (<14nm) must first obtain a license from the U.S. Department of Commerce. In addition, U.S. persons (citizens and permanent residents) are barred from supporting China’s advanced chip development or production without a license. ... » read more

SiPs: The Best Things in Small Packages


System-in-package (SiP) is quickly emerging as the package option of choice for a growing number of applications and markets, setting off a frenzy of activity around new materials, methodologies, and processes. SiP is an essential packaging platform that integrates multiple functionalities onto a single substrate, which enables lower system cost, design flexibility, and superior electrical p... » read more

Wafer Cleaning Becomes Key Challenge In Manufacturing 3D Structures


Wafer cleaning, once a rather mundane task as simple as dipping wafers in cleaning fluid, is emerging as one of the top major engineering challenges for manufacturing GAA FETs and 3D-ICs. With these new 3D structures — some on the horizon but some already in high-volume manufacturing — semiconductor wafer equipment and materials suppliers in the wet cleaning business are at the epicenter... » read more

Insights Into Advanced DRAM Capacitor Patterning: Process Window Evaluation Using Virtual Fabrication


With continuous device scaling, process windows have become narrower and narrower due to smaller feature sizes and greater process step variability [1]. A key task during the R&D stage of semiconductor development is to choose a good integration scheme with a relatively large process window. When wafer test data is limited, evaluating the process window for different integration schemes can... » read more

Blog Review: Oct. 5


Arm's Andrew Pickard chats with Georgia Tech's Azad Naeemi and Da Eun Shim about an effort to evaluate the benefit of new interconnect materials and wire geometry and determine their impacts at the microprocessor level. Synopsys' Shekhar Kapoor shares highlights from a recent panel exploring the promises, challenges, and realities of 3D IC technology, including the potential of 3D nanosystem... » read more

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