Litho Challenges Break The Design-Process Wall


The days when chip designers could throw tape “over the wall” to the manufacturing side are long gone. Over the last several technology generations, increasingly restrictive process kits have forced designers to accommodate their circuit structures to the manufacturing process. Lacking a successor to 193nm lithography, the industry has turned to increasingly complex resolution enhancemen... » read more

10nm Fab Challenges


After a promising start in 2015, the semiconductor equipment industry is currently experiencing a slight lull. The pause is expected to be short-lived, however. Suppliers of [getkc id="208" comment="3D NAND"] devices are expected to add more fab capacity later this year. And about the same time, foundries are expected to order the first wave of high-volume production tools for 10nm. At 10nm... » read more

10nm Fab Watch


When will the 10nm logic node happen? Analysts believe that foundry vendors will move into 10nm finFET volume production around 2017. Still others say the 10nm finFET ramp could take place anywhere from 2018 to 2020. The predictions are all over the map. One way to predict the timing, progress and demand for 10nm is simple: Follow the fabs. In fact, Intel, Samsung, TSMC and GlobalFound... » read more

Tech Talk: 14nm


Tamer Ragheb, digital design methodology technical lead at GlobalFoundries about what's changed with 14nm finFETs, including coloring with double patterning, new corners, Miller Effects, timing issues and variability. [youtube vid=Yk6jSKCtsjU] » read more

The Roadmap To 5nm


By Debra Vogler Among the challenges the semiconductor industry will be facing as it moves down the path to node 5 are resistance-capacitance (RC) management and integration. SEMI is pleased to announce a SEMICON West 2015 STS technical program exploring these and other high-volume manufacturing challenges. According to An Steegen, SVP of Process Technology at imec, the list of RC managemen... » read more

How We’ll Get There from Here


The electronics industry is like a battleship with remarkable handling properties. I thought about it this week sitting at an industry event a day after stumbling across Neptune—the technology project, not the god. Those two experiences forced me to rethink some fundamental assumptions about system design and how the ecosystem responds to change. If you’ve not heard of Neptune, it�... » read more

Challenges Mount For Patterning And Masks


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss [getkc id="80" comment="lithography"] and photomask trends with Uday Mitra, vice president and chief technology officer for the Etch Business Unit at [getentity id="22817" e_name="Applied Materials"]; Pawitter Mangat, senior manager and deputy director for EUV lithography at [getentity id="22819" comment="GlobalFoundries"]; Aki Fujimura, chief execu... » read more

Challenges Mount For Patterning And Masks


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss lithography and photomask trends with Uday Mitra, vice president and chief technology officer for the Etch Business Unit at [getentity id="22817" e_name="Applied Materials"]; Pawitter Mangat, senior manager and deputy director for EUV lithography at [getentity id="22819" comment="GlobalFoundries"]; Aki Fujimura, chief executive at [getentity id="228... » read more

5 Reasons EUV Will Or Won’t Be Used


Digging into this subject, there are five metrics that count in a lithography tool: resolution, throughput, defects, overlay, and reliability. So what does the best data tell us about the current state and realistic prognosis for [gettech id="31045" comment="EUV"]. Semiconductor Engineering posed this question to Matt Colburn, senior manager for patterning research at [getentity id="22306" comm... » read more

3D Effects At 20nm And Beyond


At the 20nm process node and below, attenuated phase shift masks (PSM) are used in the photolithography process, which results in approximately 70nm of topography. This now must be accounted for using 3D mask approximation. Aki Fujimura, CEO of [getentity id="22864" comment="D2S"], explained that in terms of [getkc id="80" comment="lithography"], where simulation-based technologies are used,... » read more

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