tag: materials

Wonder Material?
By Joanne Itow - 22 Jan, 2015 - Comments: 0

The fact that new materials continue to be discovered and introduced into innovative electronic devices is a major feat. Semico is analyzing the challenges of new product discovery, development and commercialization. Graphene is just one of the products under investigation. This write-up is taken from a full essay in this month’s Semico IPI report. Since 2004, when two scientists at Manch... » read more

Searching For The Next Power Transistor
By Mark LaPedus - 22 Jan, 2015 - Comments: 0

For decades, the industry has relied on various power semiconductors to control and convert electrical power in an efficient manner. Power semis are ubiquitous, as they are found in adapters, appliances, cars, elevators, switching power supplies, power grids and other systems. But today’s silicon-based power semiconductor transistor technologies, such as IGBTs, MOSFETs and thyristors, are ... » read more

Will Materials Derail Moore’s Law?
By Mark LaPedus - 13 Nov, 2014 - Comments: 0

Is Moore’s Law slowing down? Clearly, chipmakers are struggling to keep up with Moore’s Law these days. But one sometimes forgotten and critical technology could easily derail Moore’s Law--materials. In fact, the cost and complexity for electronic materials are increasing at each node. “Chemical and gas commodity procurement spends are growing rapidly due to process complexity and un... » read more

Materials Matter
By SEMI - 18 Sep, 2014 - Comments: 0

By Pushkar Apte Despite formidable technical and economic challenges, the semiconductor technology engine continues steaming ahead, changing the way we work and play in amazing ways. This engine primarily ran on the “Moore’s Law track” for nearly half a century – but now, the tracks are diverging for digital logic and memory, and “More-than-Moore” devices. Continuing progress requi... » read more

Next-Generation Sustainability Gets More Challenging
By Paula Doe - 28 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 0

The semiconductor industry has made major progress on reducing energy usage and water consumption, and effectively abating its emissions, as companies made sustainability a core requirement in their design of new processes and tools. But it’s about to get considerably harder. That means more opportunities to add value with innovative technologies, and also more need for collaboration. Next... » read more

Experts At The Table: Process Technology Challenges
By Mark LaPedus - 05 Sep, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus Semiconductor Manufacturing & Design sat down to discuss future transistor, process and manufacturing challenges with Subramani Kengeri, vice president of advanced technology architecture at GlobalFoundries; Carlos Mazure, chief technical officer at Soitec; Raj Jammy, senior vice president and general manager of the Semiconductor Group at Intermolecular; and Girish Dixit, v... » read more

It’s A Materials World
By Mark LaPedus - 15 Aug, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus At a recent event, Intel’s fab materials guru described a nightmarish occurrence that nearly brought the chip giant to its knees. Tim Hendry, director of fab materials and vice president of the Technology and Manufacturing Group at Intel, said the company obtained a critical material from an undisclosed supplier. “This large sub-supplier, a very large chemical company, m... » read more

Material Impact
By Barry Pangrle - 08 Aug, 2013 - Comments: 0

Ed Sperling’s June article New Approaches to Better Performance and Lower Power took a look at the new materials that researchers are examining for future technology nodes. Figure 1. Basic Planar CMOS FET Figure 1 shows a basic diagram of a planar CMOS FET (diagrams for other FETs can be found here). The drive strength of a FET is proportional to , where μ is the surface mobility for... » read more

Changes And Challenges
By Ed Sperling - 18 Jul, 2013 - Comments: 0

At 130nm, the shift to copper interconnects and 300mm wafer sizes was considered to be the most difficult transition in its long and incredibly efficient history. The next chapter will be even tougher. It’s not that change is a foreign concept to semiconductor design and manufacturing. In fact, it’s probably the only constant over the past 50 years. But in the past, those changes tended ... » read more

New Approaches To Better Performance And Lower Power
By Ed Sperling - 11 Jul, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Ed Sperling Until 90nm, every feature shrink and rev of Moore’s Law included a side benefit of better power and performance. After that, improvements involved everything from different back-end processes to copper interconnects and transistor structures. But from 20nm onward, the future will rest with a combination of new materials, new architectures and new packaging approaches—and som... » read more

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