tag: metrology

The Specialty Device Surge Part 3: Solving The Process Control Challenges Of MEMS, Photonics, Co-Packaged Optics, And More
By Christopher Haire - 12 May, 2026 - Comments: 0

Every day, consumers rely on an invisible network of specialty semiconductor devices without realizing it. The smartphone in your pocket is a good place to start. It knows when you rotate the screen thanks to MEMS sensors, and its camera delivers crisp images through advanced CMOS image sensors. Meanwhile, fast charging technology, wireless connectivity, facial recognition, and high-frequency c... » read more

The Smart Advantage: How Artificial Intelligence Is Transforming Inspection And Metrology In Semiconductor Manufacturing
By Charlie Zhu - 14 Apr, 2026 - Comments: 0

There is no doubt that the semiconductor industry is in an era of rapid and profound transformation, driven by an increasing demand for smaller, faster, and more powerful chips. As the speed of innovation continues to advance, so does the pressure on semiconductor manufacturers to detect and address defects and inconsistencies with near-perfect accuracy to keep pace with this demand. Manual ... » read more

The Specialty Device Surge Part 2: The Process Control Challenges Of MEMS, Co-Packaged Optics, And More
By Christopher Haire - 07 Apr, 2026 - Comments: 0

In a world where high-bandwidth memory, GPUs, and advanced AI packages are all the rage, it is easy to forget the important role specialty devices play. These unsung heroes of modern life perform critical functions across a wide range of industries, including automotive, telecommunications, data centers, emerging AI hardware ecosystems, and consumer electronics, just like the smartphone in your... » read more

What’s Failing At The Interface
By Gregory Haley - 07 Apr, 2026 - Comments: 0

Key Takeaways The interface is where failures in advanced packaging become visible, but it's increasingly not where they originate. Weak interfaces often don't fail at time zero, but they do degrade due to parametric drift and margin erosion that binary test screens miss entirely. The temporary test interconnect is the largest variable in the measurement chain and must be controlled ... » read more

The Specialty Device Surge, Part 1: Wafer Size Transitions Are Powering The Future Of Specialty Devices And Bringing New Challenges
By Christopher Haire - 10 Mar, 2026 - Comments: 0

Specialty devices are the unsung heroes of modern life. For many in the semiconductor industry today, the spotlight is on the SiC and GaN power devices used in automotive, green energy, fast-charge consumer electronics (CE), and high-performance computing (HPC) applications (Figures 1 and 2). However, specialty devices are more than just power devices. They are a broad class of semiconductor... » read more

Detecting Chemical Variability At Advanced Nodes
By Gregory Haley - 10 Mar, 2026 - Comments: 2

Key Takeaways Yield loss is increasingly driven by molecular variability in thin films, interfaces, and contamination rather than visible defects. Reliability issues often appear first as parametric drift or margin erosion under workload and thermal stress. Detection requires correlating molecular metrology, embedded electrical telemetry, and AI-driven wafer inspection. As s... » read more

Digital Twins: The Cloud’s The Limit
By Ed Sperling - 10 Mar, 2026 - Comments: 1

Key Takeaways Digital twins are gaining traction as a way of testing different options at every step of the design-through-manufacturing flow. AI can be used to glue together disparate data types in multi-physics simulations. The promise of digital twins is huge, but multiple challenges need to be solved before it can live up to its potential. Digital twin technology is draw... » read more

Tool And Methodology Changes Coming In Fab And Package Automation
By Gregory Haley - 04 Mar, 2026 - Comments: 0

Experts at the table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss what's changing in semiconductor fabs and packaging houses with Michael Lowman, senior product marketing manager for Data Analytics at Cohu; Aftkhar Aslam, CEO at yieldWerx, Woo Young Han, product marketing director at Onto Innovation; and Lihong Cao, senior director of engineering and technical marketing for ASE. What foll... » read more

Research Bits: Mar. 3
By Jesse Allen - 03 Mar, 2026 - Comments: 0

Computational electron microscopy Researchers from Cornell University, TSMC, and ASM used electron ptychography for atomic-scale defect inspection of transistors. The computational imaging method uses an extremely precise electron microscope pixel array detector (EMPAD) to collect detailed scattering patterns of electrons after they pass through transistors and compare how the patterns chan... » read more

Back-End Automation Tackles Growing Complexity
By Gregory Haley - 25 Feb, 2026 - Comments: 0

Experts at the table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss back-end automation challenges in advanced packaging with Michael Lowman, senior product marketing manager for Data Analytics at Cohu; Aftkhar Aslam, CEO at yieldWerx, Woo Young Han, product marketing director at Onto Innovation; and Lihong Cao, senior director of engineering and technical marketing for ASE. What follows are ex... » read more

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