The Petabyte Problem: How AI Is Finally Making Semiconductor Manufacturing Data Actionable


The semiconductor industry has quietly accumulated one of the most complex data challenges in modern manufacturing, and it has largely been losing the battle to solve it. Modern fabs now generate gigabytes of data per chip across probe, assembly, and test operations. Test programs routinely exceed one million test items. The largest enterprise deployments have crossed the multi-petabyte thre... » read more

Tool Matching Getting Tougher Across Test & Metrology


Key Takeaways Engineers leverage both device-specific and tool-level data to identify a process "sweet spot." Tight, frequent tool-to-tool matching enables greater yield and fab flexibility. Machine learning helps capture the nuances of a tool's signature. Many people outside of the semiconductor industry wonder how humans can fabricate transistors with tens of nanometer sca... » read more

Addressing Semiconductor Cybersecurity Challenges through Robust Industry Standards and Globally Secure Frameworks


This presentation addresses critical cybersecurity challenges in semiconductor manufacturing by outlining current industry standards (SEMI E187, E188, E191) and their implementation through SMCC workgroups. It identifies key gaps in existing frameworks—particularly the inadequacy of current equipment connectivity standards for distributed collaboration and the scalability challenge of custom ... » read more

Digital Twins: The Cloud’s The Limit


Key Takeaways Digital twins are gaining traction as a way of testing different options at every step of the design-through-manufacturing flow. AI can be used to glue together disparate data types in multi-physics simulations. The promise of digital twins is huge, but multiple challenges need to be solved before it can live up to its potential. Digital twin technology is draw... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


Geopolitics U.S. lawmakers are urging tighter export controls on advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment (SME) to China, warning existing loopholes threaten national security. "China is working to build domestic SME by exploiting access to U.S. and allied subcomponents required to produce tools," states the letter, which also says better coordination with allies is essential. The U.S.... » read more

Beyond Optical: A New E-Beam Inspection For Advanced Chips


The semiconductor industry is defined by its relentless pursuit of smaller, faster, and more powerful chips. As we push into advanced 3D architectures like gate-all-around (GAA) transistors, a critical challenge emerges: finding the defects that kill yield. Many of these flaws are deeply buried within complex structures and impossible to see with traditional optical inspection. This creates ... » read more

Impact of the Gate and Fin Space Variation on Stress Modulation and FinFET Transistor Performance


Device scaling in advanced CMOS nodes is becoming more difficult due to patterning limitations and complex 3-D transistor integration schemes. This also makes the devices more sensitive to patterning variability. The presented study investigates the impact of poly pitch and fin pitch variability on stress-induced performance variation in 7nm FinFET transistors. Variations in critical dimension ... » read more

Chiplets Add More Inspection And Test Steps


Key Takeaways Ensuring the reliability of multi-die assemblies requires a variety of approaches to detect subsurface defects. Bonds and interconnects are especially problematic and require more inspection insertions. Ensuring reliability requires connecting fragmented data that is often siloed. The shift to multi-die assemblies is forcing changes in how chips are tested and ... » read more

Big Changes Ahead For Semiconductor Manufacturing


John Kibarian, CEO of PDF Solutions, talks with Semiconductor Engineering's Ed Sperling about the growing role of AI in chip manufacturing, the impact of 3D-ICs on the supply chain, and how to shorten cycle time to get leading-edge chips and multi-die assemblies to market more quickly. To listen, click here.   » read more

Will 2026 Be Dominated By AI?


Many opportunities and problems became highly interlinked in 2025, fueled by the historic growth in everything AI. But how close are we coming to breaking points, and what are people doing to mitigate them? That is the story that will unfold this year. AI's penetration into an increasing number of workloads is placing almost quadratic demands on compute, memory, interconnect, and the archite... » read more

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