5nm Fab Challenges

By Mark LaPedus - 21 Jan, 2016 - Comments: 2

At a recent event, Intel presented a paper that generated sparks and fueled speculation regarding the future direction of the leading-edge IC industry. The company described a next-generation transistor called the nanowire FET, which is a finFET turned on its side with a gate wrapped around it. Intel’s nanowire FET, sometimes called a gate-all-around FET, is said to meet the device require... » read more

EUV: Cost Killer Or Savior?

By Katherine Derbyshire - 17 Sep, 2015 - Comments: 4

Moore’s Law, the economic foundation of the semiconductor industry, states that transistor density doubles in each technology generation, at constant cost. As IMEC’s Arindam Mallik explained, however, the transition to a new technology node is not a single event, but a process. Typically, when the new technology is first introduced, it brings a 20% to 25% wafer cost increase. Process opt... » read more

Patterning Interconnects At 10nm And Below

By Applied Materials - 20 Aug, 2015 - Comments: 0

By Connie Duncan Chip manufacturers today build billions of transistors on a chip, delivering incredible computing power to consumers. What often gets overlooked is how hard it’s getting to create the many miles of ultra-thin copper wiring used to connect each of the transistors. Patterning these electrical pathways is becoming increasingly challenging as they grow denser and finer, and any ... » read more

Fab Issues At 7nm And 5nm

By Mark LaPedus - 23 Jul, 2015 - Comments: 2

The race toward the 7nm logic node officially kicked off in July, when IBM Research, GlobalFoundries and Samsung jointly rolled out what the companies claim are the industry’s first 7nm test chips with functional transistors. They're not alone, of course. Intel and TSMC also are racing separately to develop 7nm technology. And in the R&D labs, chipmakers also are working on technologies f... » read more

Tech Talk: Wafer Plane Analysis

By Ed Sperling - 23 Jul, 2015 - Comments: 0

Leo Pang, executive vice president at D2S, talks about the problems of patterning at 40nm and below and how to deal with them more effectively using existing equipment. [youtube vid=FbRyhw2q3fE] » read more

Litho Challenges Break The Design-Process Wall

By Katherine Derbyshire - 22 Jun, 2015 - Comments: 3

The days when chip designers could throw tape “over the wall” to the manufacturing side are long gone. Over the last several technology generations, increasingly restrictive process kits have forced designers to accommodate their circuit structures to the manufacturing process. Lacking a successor to 193nm lithography, the industry has turned to increasingly complex resolution enhancemen... » read more

In-Die Registration Measurement Using Novel Model-Based Approach For Advanced Technology Masks

By KLA - 18 Jun, 2015 - Comments: 0

In recent years, 193nm immersion lithography has been extended instead of adopting EUV lithography. And multi-patterning technology is now widely applied, which requires tighter specification as the pattern size gets smaller on advanced semiconductor devices. Regarding the mask registration metrology, it is necessary to consider some difficult challenges like tight repeatability and complex In-... » read more

5 Reasons EUV Will Or Won’t Be Used

By Michael Watts - 19 Mar, 2015 - Comments: 1

Digging into this subject, there are five metrics that count in a lithography tool: resolution, throughput, defects, overlay, and reliability. So what does the best data tell us about the current state and realistic prognosis for [gettech id="31045" comment="EUV"]. Semiconductor Engineering posed this question to Matt Colburn, senior manager for patterning research at [getentity id="22306" comm... » read more

LIFT Your 3D Printing Application

By Michael Watts - 09 Mar, 2015 - Comments: 0

A major focus at Photonics West 2015 was 3D additive manufacturing. There were sessions on laser additive processing, digital light fabrication, and MOEMS devices. In all sessions, there were papers about systems, materials processing and applications. Here are a few of the papers that caught my attention. Two photon fabrication was the most commonly reported technique, it is the only way to... » read more

Still Waiting For III-V Chips

By Mark LaPedus - 19 Feb, 2015 - Comments: 0

For years, chipmakers have been searching for an alternative material to replace traditional silicon in the channel for advanced CMOS devices at 7nm and beyond. There’s a good reason, too: At 7nm, silicon will likely run out of steam in the channel. Until recently, chipmakers were counting on III-V materials for the channels, at least for NFET. Compared to silicon, III-V materials provide ... » read more

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Knowledge Centers
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tag: patterning