Packaging Biz Faces Challenges in 2019


The IC packaging industry is bracing for slower growth, if not uncertainty, in 2019, even though advanced packaging remains a bright spot in the market. Generally, IC packaging houses saw strong demand in the first part of 2018, but the market cooled in the second half of the year due to a slowdown in memory. Going forward, the slower IC packaging market is expected to extend into the first ... » read more

Finding New Dimensions Of Innovation


Whenever a company announces a major strategy shift and restructuring, such as pivoting away from 7nm FinFET technology development, it’s understandable that confusion, uncertainty and misunderstandings may arise. The best way to allay these concerns is to take an objective look at the situation: Demand for chips for the automotive, IoT, mobility and data center/wireless infrastructure mar... » read more

Interaction Of Hard IP And Chip-Package


Current and future customer-specific circuit development requires an increasing number of different interfaces, such as for memory (DDR3, DDR4, LPDDR3, LPDDR4, etc.), radio interfaces (Bluetooth, NBIoT, etc.) or high-speed LVDS/SERDES interfaces (DisplayPort, Ethernet, USB, etc.). For customer-specific circuit projects, these components are frequently purchased as hard IP because the developmen... » read more

Variation At 10/7nm


Klaus Schuegraf, vice president of new products and solutions at PDF Solutions, explains why variability is a growing challenge at advanced nodes, why middle of line is now one of the big problem areas, and what happens when a via is misaligned due to a small process variation. https://youtu.be/jQfggOnxZJQ » read more

The Big Blur


Chip companies, research houses, foundries—and more recently large systems companies—have been developing alternative technologies to continue scaling power and performance. It's still not obvious which of those will win, let alone survive, or what they will do to the economics of developing chips. For more than five decades, the biggest concern was scaling devices in order to save money... » read more

NIWeek Test Talk


Semiconductor Engineering sat down with David Hall, Chief Marketer, Semiconductor, of National Instruments, and Mike Watts, NI’s Senior Solutions Marketer, Semiconductor Test, during NIWeek 2018 in Austin, Texas. “One of the opportunities for National Instruments is that over the last 10 years, we’ve seen larger semiconductor organizations change the way they do testing both for R&... » read more

Packaging Chips For Cars


As the complexity of automotive chips grows, so does the complexity of the package. In fact, packaging is becoming increasingly crucial to the performance and reliability of the chips, and both parts need to meet stringent safety standards before they are used inside a vehicle. This is true for all safety-critical applications, but for automotive in particular there are several key reasons w... » read more

KLA-Tencor Buys Orbotech


In a move to expand into the process equipment and other new businesses, KLA-Tencor has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Orbotech for approximately $3.4 billion. With the acquisition of Israel’s Orbotech, KLA-Tencor expands its efforts in the inspection and metrology markets. In addition, KLA-Tencor also enters into some new equipment fronts. Orbotech is involved in three ... » read more

Why Use An Assembly Design Kit And Assembly Design Flow?


A number of years ago, the packages of electronic systems were only intended to protect the circuit from mechanical stresses and to realize a simple fan-out from the close spacing of connections on the circuit to the larger spacing on the packaging. At the time, there were also only a few different packaging types, all of simple design. Over the years, however, the requirements on packages have... » read more

EDA, IP Sales Up 8%


The EDA sector continues to exhibit solid growth, increasing 8% to $2.2262 billion in Q3, up from $2.0937 billion in the same period in 2016, according to the most recent stats from the ESD Alliance Market Statistics Service. The four-quarter moving average was up 11.5%, year over year. While all of the numbers were up, two areas showed extraordinary growth. One involved Japan, which showed ... » read more

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