tag: metrology

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

When Cleaning Chips Isn’t Clean Enough
By Gregory Haley - 19 Feb, 2026 - Comments: 0

Key Takeaways Contamination is becoming much more difficult to identify at the most advanced nodes, forcing fabs to rethink how control is achieved. Issues may show up as electrical or statistical anomalies, not particles, and not at time zero. Reliable classification is needed to identify critical contamination and reduce time and effort spent on nuisance failures. For much... » read more

Smaller Geometries, Bigger Demands: The Role Of OCD In GAA Logic And Vertical Gate DRAM Process Control
By Jiangtao Hu - 09 Dec, 2025 - Comments: 0

AI workloads are pushing the boundaries of compute, memory, and interconnect architectures, and to meet these goals, manufacturers are rapidly accelerating advanced logic and DRAM development. Chief among these innovations: gate-all-around (GAA) logic transistor and vertical gate (VG) DRAM, two device architectures that promise higher performance, improved power efficiency, and greater scalabil... » read more

Metrology Digs Deep To Produce Next-Generation 3D NAND
By Laura Peters - 09 Dec, 2025 - Comments: 1

Each generation of 3D NAND packs about 30% more bits than the previous version, with current devices storing up to 2 terabits of data in a die the size of a fingernail. With new product introductions shrinking from 18 months to every 12 months, chipmakers are constantly innovating to enable this prodigious scaling pace. 3D NAND technology is a core ingredient in mobile phones, solid-state dr... » read more

Interconnect Innovations In High Bandwidth Memory: Part 2
By Damon Tsai - 14 Oct, 2025 - Comments: 0

By Damon Tsai, Woo Young Han, and Tim Kryman Interconnect technology in high bandwidth memory (HBM) is at a fork in the road. One direction leads to tried-and-true microbump technology, and the other leads to a compelling alternative, hybrid bonding. Both technologies are evolving to address the stringent requirements of next generation HBM in pursuit of increased I/O density supporting high... » read more

Metrology’s Growing Role In Reducing False Defects
By Gregory Haley - 14 Oct, 2025 - Comments: 0

When a good die fails test and gets scrapped, often no one notices, because false failures look identical to real ones. Yet across the industry, these phantom defects are quietly eroding yield, inflating test costs, and masking the true health of manufacturing processes. At advanced nodes and in heterogeneous packaging, where margins are already razor-thin, even minor variations in contact r... » read more

Hybrid Approach Emerges For Edge/Cloud Inspection Of Chips
By Anne Meixner - 14 Oct, 2025 - Comments: 0

An explosion in data from inspection images and metrology measurements is creating a confusing set of demands for chipmakers and their equipment vendors. On one hand they need the massive storage and compute resources of the cloud to utilize AI/ML-based models, but they also need the faster response time of the edge to make adjustments at the tool level. Balancing these requirements is a mas... » read more

Critical Challenges and Opportunities Related to Polymer-Based Materials in Semiconductor Packaging (NIST, NC State, NREL et al)
By Technical Paper Link - 11 Sep, 2025 - Comments: 0

A new technical paper titled "Material Needs and Measurement Challenges for Advanced Semiconductor Packaging: Understanding the Soft Side of Science" was published by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, North Carolina State University, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, ASE, Intel, Innocentrix, and Binghamton University. Abstract "This Perspective builds up... » read more

Challenges In Stacking HBM
By Ed Sperling - 03 Sep, 2025 - Comments: 1

AI data centers are pushing for higher density in high-bandwidth memory. Today, the maximum number of layers that can be stacked is 8, but that increases to as many as 24 layers by 2030. The big challenge will be in the interconnects, and making sure the microbumps align. At 16 layers, the bump pitch will be less than 10 microns, and the dies will be thinner. Damon Tsai, head of product marketi... » read more

Manufacturing At The Limits
By Gregory Haley - 21 Aug, 2025 - Comments: 2

Hybrid bonding has been in production for several years, with mature flows capable of delivering robust yields using 10µm interconnects. At that scale, processes can tolerate hundreds of nanometers of overlay variation, modest differences in wafer bow, and particle sizes rivaling the interconnect height without catastrophic impact. Hybrid bonding is compatible with optical metrology, existing ... » read more

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