tag: OSATs

Reliability Costs Becoming Harder To Track
By Ed Sperling And Susan Rambo - 08 Jun, 2021 - Comments: 0

Ensuring reliability in chips is becoming more complex and significantly more expensive, shifting left into the design cycle and right into the field. But those costs also are becoming more difficult to define and track, varying greatly from one design to the next based upon process node, package technology, market segment, and which fab or OSAT is used. As the number of options increases fo... » read more

Chip Monitoring And Test Collaborate
By Bryon Moyer - 11 May, 2021 - Comments: 0

As on-chip monitoring becomes more prevalent in complex advanced-node ICs, it’s easy to question whether or not it conflicts with conventional silicon testing. It might even supplant such testing in the future. Or alternatively, they could interact, with each supporting the other. “On-chip monitors provide fine-grained observability into effects and issues that are otherwise difficult or... » read more

What Goes Wrong In Advanced Packages
By Ed Sperling - 24 Mar, 2021 - Comments: 1

Advanced packaging may be the best way forward for massive improvements in performance, lower power, and different form factors, but it adds a whole new set of issues that were much better understood when Moore's Law and the ITRS roadmap created a semi-standardized path forward for the chip industry. Different advanced packaging options — system-in-package, fan-outs, 2.5D, 3D-IC — have a... » read more

The Darker Side Of Hybrid Bonding
By Katherine Derbyshire - 17 Dec, 2020 - Comments: 2

With semiconductors, it's often things everyone takes for granted that cause the biggest headaches, and that problem is compounded when something fundamental changes — such as bonding two chips together using a process aimed at maximizing performance. Case in point: CMP for backend of the line metallization in hybrid bonding. While this is a mature process, it doesn't easily translate for ... » read more

Taking Advantage Of Outsourced Test Services
By Vineet Pancholi - 19 Nov, 2020 - Comments: 0

The business model in today’s competitive world of commerce has shifted over recent years to “services.” Companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Google are prime success stories that have advanced the industry with business-enabling services. These economic productivity improvement services allow their customers to focus on product architecture, design and quick time to market. The service p... » read more

Regaining The Edge In U.S. Chip Manufacturing
By Mark LaPedus & Ann Steffora Mutschler - 26 Oct, 2020 - Comments: 16

The United States is developing new strategies to prevent it from falling further behind Korea, Taiwan, and perhaps even China in semiconductor manufacturing, as trade tensions and national security concerns continue to grow. For years, the U.S. has been a leader in the development of new chip products like GPUs and microprocessors. But from a chip manufacturing standpoint, the U.S. is losin... » read more

Defect Challenges Grow For IC Packaging
By Mark LaPedus - 22 Oct, 2020 - Comments: 0

Several vendors are ramping up new inspection equipment based on infrared, optical, and X-ray technologies in an effort to reduce defects in current and future IC packages. While all of these technologies are necessary, they also are complementary. No one tool can meet all defect inspection requirements. As a result, packaging vendors may need to buy more and different tools. For years, p... » read more

How Secure Is The Package?
By Ed Sperling - 17 Sep, 2020 - Comments: 1

Advanced packaging is a viable way of extending the benefits of Moore's Law without the excessive cost of shrinking everything to fit on a single die, but it also raises some issues about security for which there are no clear answers at the moment. OSATs and foundries have been working the kinks out of how to put the pieces together in the most cost-effective and reliable way for the better ... » read more

Momentum Builds For Advanced Packaging
By Mark LaPedus - 17 Sep, 2020 - Comments: 0

The semiconductor industry is stepping up its efforts in advanced packaging, an approach that is becoming more widespread with new and complex chip designs. Foundries, OSATs and others are rolling out the next wave of advanced packaging technologies, such as 2.5D/3D, chiplets and fan-out, and they are developing more exotic packaging technologies that promise to improve performance, reduce p... » read more

Chiplet Reliability Challenges Ahead
By Ed Sperling - 12 Aug, 2020 - Comments: 2

Assembling chips using LEGO-like hard IP is finally beginning to take root, more than two decades after it was first proposed, holding the promise of faster time to market with predictable results and higher yield. But as these systems of chips begin showing up in mission-critical and safety-critical applications, ensuring reliability is proving to be stubbornly difficult. The main driver fo... » read more

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