Why Packaging Matters


The semiconductor package is changing. What was until very recently considered an afterthought is now becoming a key part of the design process at all major chipmakers, and a critical factor in the extension of Moore's Law. This is a sharp reversal of what was almost universally an afterthought in planar silicon design and manufacturing. Rarely was the package an integral part of the archite... » read more

Measuring FinFETs Will Get Harder


The industry is gradually migrating toward chips based on finFET transistors at 16nm/14nm and beyond, but manufacturing those finFETs is proving to be a daunting challenge in the fab. Patterning is the most difficult process for finFETs. But another process, metrology, is fast becoming one of the biggest challenges for the next-generation transistor technology. In fact, [getkc id="252" kc_n... » read more

Inside Multi-Beam E-Beam Lithography


Semiconductor Engineering sat down with David Lam, chairman of Multibeam, a developer of multi-beam e-beam tools for direct-write lithography applications. Lam is also a venture capitalist. He founded Lam Research in 1980, but left as an employee in 1985. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: How has the equipment business changed over the years and what’s the state of the i... » read more

Blog Review: Nov. 11


In this week's top five picks, Ansys' Justin Nescott explores the importance of energy efficiency in lighting, buildings, and… jellyfish? Plus, getting more sky into apartments, and flying through the sky on a jetpack. Terahertz waves are difficult to create and detect, but it may be easier thanks to a Swiss research team. Rambus' Aharon Etengoff digs into how they used a common megapixel ... » read more

China’s Fab Tool Biz Heats Up


For years, China has been a steady growth market for suppliers of semiconductor equipment. Internally, though, the country is comprised of trailing-edge fabs and IC-assembly houses, which means equipment vendors sell relatively mature tools and compete on price. That’s about to change, however. Today, the IC equipment business is heating up in China as the nation begins to upgrade and pour... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


In case you missed it, Apple rolled out its latest iPhones and other products. The latest iPhone 6 is using chips based on finFETs. So, who won Apple’s application processor foundry business for the iPhone 7? “In our foundry checks, it appears Apple is likely splitting the 14/16nm business for the recent product launches between TSMC and Samsung. We suspect Samsung’s 14nm is used for the ... » read more

ALD Market Heats Up


Amid the shift to 3D NAND, finFETs and other device architectures, the atomic layer deposition (ALD) market is heating up on several fronts. Applied Materials, for example, recently moved to shakeup the landscape by rolling out a new, high-throughput ALD tool. Generally, [getkc id="250" kc_name="ALD"] is a process that deposits materials layer-by-layer at the atomic level, enabling thin and ... » read more

Memory Hierarchy Shakeup


It’s no secret that today’s memory chips and storage devices are struggling to keep up with the growing demands in data processing. To solve the problem, chipmakers have been working on several next-generation memory types. But most technologies have been delayed or fallen short of their promises. But after numerous delays, a new wave of next-generation, nonvolatile memories are finally ... » read more

Advanced IC Packaging Biz Heats Up


After a number of false starts and lackluster adoption, the advanced IC packaging market is finally heating up. On one front, for example, a new wave of chips based on advanced [getkc id="82" kc_name="2.5D"]/[getkc id="42" kc_name="3D"] stacked-die is entering the market. And on another front, the momentum is building for new and advanced 2D packages, such as embedded package-on-package (PoP... » read more

Interconnect Challenges Grow


It’s becoming apparent that traditional chip scaling is slowing down. The 16nm/14nm logic node took longer than expected to unfold. And the 10nm node and beyond could suffer the same fate. So what’s the main cause? It’s hard to pinpoint the problem, although many blame the issues on lithography. But what could eventually hold up the scaling train, and undo Moore’s Law, is arguably t... » read more

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