What Works Best For Chiplets

By Anne Meixner - 18 Apr, 2024 - Comments: 0

The semiconductor industry is preparing for the migration from proprietary chiplet-based systems to a more open chiplet ecosystem, in which chiplets fabricated by different companies of various technologies and device nodes can be integrated in a single package with acceptable yield. To make this work as expected, the chip industry will have to solve a variety of well-documented technical an... » read more

Fan-Out Panel-Level Packaging Hurdles

By Anne Meixner - 24 Jan, 2024 - Comments: 0

Fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP) promises to significantly lower assembly costs over fan-out wafer-level packaging, providing the relevant processes for die placement, molding and redistribution layers (RDLs) formation can be scaled up with equivalent yield. There is still much work to be done before that happens. Until now, FOPLP has been adopted for devices that are manufactured in ve... » read more

Many More Hurdles In Heterogeneous Integration

By Laura Peters - 18 Jan, 2024 - Comments: 0

Advanced packaging options continue to stack up in the pursuit of “More than Moore” and higher levels of integration. It has become a place where many high-density interconnects converge, and where many new and familiar problems need to be addressed. The industry’s first foray into fine-pitch multi-die packaging utilized silicon interposers with through-silicon vias (TSVs) to deliver s... » read more

Smart Manufacturing Makes Gains In Chip Industry

By Anne Meixner - 15 Jun, 2023 - Comments: 0

Lights out manufacturing is gaining steam across the semiconductor industry, accelerating productivity, improving quality, and reducing costs and environment impact. These benefits are the result of years of strategic investments in technologies like machine-to-machine communication, data analytics, and robotics to achieve higher levels of autonomy. Semiconductor factories have long depen... » read more

True 3D-IC Problems

By Brian Bailey - 27 Apr, 2023 - Comments: 0

Placing logic on logic may sound like a small step, but several problems must be overcome to make it a reality. True 3D involves wafers stacked on top of each other in a highly integrated manner. This is very different from 2.5D integration, where logic is placed side-by-side, connected by an interposer. And there are some intermediate solutions today where significant memory is stacked on l... » read more

True 3D Is Much Tougher Than 2.5D

By Brian Bailey - 23 Mar, 2023 - Comments: 0

Creating real 3D designs is proving to be much more complex and difficult than 2.5D, requiring significant innovation in both technology and tools. While there has been much discussion about 3D designs, there are multiple interpretations about what 3D entails. This is more than just semantics, however, because each packaging option requires different design approaches and technologies. And a... » read more

Finding Frameworks For End-To-End Analytics

By Anne Meixner - 12 Jul, 2022 - Comments: 0

End-to-end analytics can improve yield and ROI on tool purchases, but reaping those benefits will require common data formats, die traceability, an appropriate level of data granularity — and a determination of who owns what data. New standards, guidelines, and consortium efforts are being developed to remove these barriers to data sharing for analytics purposes. But the amount of work req... » read more

Revising 5G RF Calibration Procedures For RF IC Production Testing

By Amkor - 16 Jun, 2022 - Comments: 0

Modern radio frequency (RF) components introduce many challenges to outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) suppliers whose objective is to ensure products are assembled and tested to meet the product test specifications. The growing advancement and demand for RF products for cellphones, navigational instruments, global positioning systems, Wi-Fi, receiver/transmitter (Rx/Tx) componen... » read more

Finding And Applying Domain Expertise In IC Analytics

By Anne Meixner - 12 Apr, 2022 - Comments: 0

Behind PowerPoint slides depicting the data inputs and outputs of a data analytics platform belies the complexity, effort, and expertise that improve fab yield. With the tsunami of data collected for semiconductor devices, fabs need engineers with domain expertise to effectively manage the data and to correctly learn from the data. Naively analyzing a data set can lead to an uninteresting an... » read more

Transistors Reach Tipping Point At 3nm

By Mark LaPedus - 23 Feb, 2022 - Comments: 1

The semiconductor industry is making its first major change in a new transistor type in more than a decade, moving toward a next-generation structure called gate-all-around (GAA) FETs. Although GAA transistors have yet to ship, many industry experts are wondering how long this technology will deliver — and what new architecture will take over from there. Barring major delays, today’s GAA... » read more

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