Navigating The GPU Revolution


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the impact of GPU acceleration on mask design and production and other process technologies, with Aki Fujimura, CEO of D2S; Youping Zhang, head of ASML Brion; Yalin Xiong, senior vice president and general manager of the BBP and reticle products division at KLA; and Kostas Adam, vice president of engineering at Synopsys. What f... » read more

eBeam Initiative Marks Major Milestones Over 15 Years Of Photomasks And Lithography


The eBeam initiative celebrated its 15th anniversary at the recent SPIE Advanced Lithography + Patterning Conference. 130 members of the mask and lithography community attended the annual lunch to mark the milestone. The eBeam Initiative welcomed its 53rd member, FUJIFILM Corporation, having grown from 20 members and advisors at its launch. FUJIFILM is the first company from the chemical supply... » read more

Fabrication Of Vertical-Taper Structures For Silicon Photonic Devices By Using Local-Thickness-Thinning Process


Authors: Shunsuke Abe, Hideo Hara, Shin Masuda, and Hirohito Yamada. This paper describes a simple fabrication process of verticaltaper structures which can locally tune the thickness of silicon photonic devices. For low-loss spot-size conversion, taper angles less than 10° are required. To fabricate the gradual-slope shape of the vertical tapers, we have developed a step-andexposure lithog... » read more

The High NA EUV Imperative: How Computational Lithography Solutions Enable Us To Think Smaller


The future of computing depends on miniaturization, and extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) is one key enabler. Until recently, we have relied on low numerical aperture (NA) EUV systems with an aperture of 0.33 to help us reduce the size of integrated circuits (ICs). As with deep ultraviolet (DUV) technology, this has begun to reach its limits. High NA EUV lithography with a 0.55 aperture rep... » read more

Industry Luminaries Highlight Opportunities For Advancing The Non-EUV Leading Edge


The eBeam Initiative’s 12th annual Luminaries survey in 2023 reported a range of nodes from >5nm to 14nm as the most advanced non-EUV nodes using 193i lithography. A panel of semiconductor photomask and lithography experts debated several of the survey results, including this one, to provide more insights behind the results. Aki Fujimura, CEO of D2S, Inc., the managing company sponsor of t... » read more

Semiconductor Device Manufacturing Process Challenges And Opportunities


Semiconductor device manufacturing involves a complex series of processes that transform raw materials into finished devices. The process typically involves four major stages: wafer fabrication, wafer testing, assembly or packaging, and final testing. Each stage has its own unique set of challenges and opportunities. The semiconductor device manufacturing process faces several challenges, inclu... » read more

Curvilinear Mask Patterning For Maximizing Lithography Entitlement


Curvilinear Mask Patterning is a cutting-edge lithography technique that promises to maximize lithography entitlement by addressing complex design challenges and critical yield limiters. However, its widespread deployment has been limited by significant computational challenges. This paper includes practical solutions to overcome the computational challenges associated with this technique, as w... » read more

Research Bits: September 19


Measuring lithography plasma sources Researchers from the University of Twente developed a tool that can measure the size of a plasma source and the color of the light it emits simultaneously, which they say could be used to improve lithography machines. “Traditionally, we could only look at the amount of light produced, but to further improve the chipmaking process, we also want to study... » read more

The Glass Substrate Question: When Will It Replace Copper Clad Laminate?


"When will glass replace copper clad laminate on advanced IC substrates?" That’s a question many on the heterogeneous integration (HI) side of the semiconductor industry are asking. Unfortunately, the answer is not straightforward. But before we get to answering that, let’s take an advanced IC substrate (AICS) refresher. In other words, how did we get to the point where glass substrat... » read more

High-NA EUV Progress And Problems


High-NA EUV will enable logic scaling for at least the next couple process nodes. It’s complex, expensive, and a feat of optical engineering, but there are a lot of components with mixed progress. Harry Levinson, principal lithographer at HJL Lithography, talks  about when this technology will likely show up, what problems still need to be resolved, and what comes next. Related Readin... » read more

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