Metrology’s Growing Role In Reducing False Defects


When a good die fails test and gets scrapped, often no one notices, because false failures look identical to real ones. Yet across the industry, these phantom defects are quietly eroding yield, inflating test costs, and masking the true health of manufacturing processes. At advanced nodes and in heterogeneous packaging, where margins are already razor-thin, even minor variations in contact r... » read more

Hybrid Approach Emerges For Edge/Cloud Inspection Of Chips


An explosion in data from inspection images and metrology measurements is creating a confusing set of demands for chipmakers and their equipment vendors. On one hand they need the massive storage and compute resources of the cloud to utilize AI/ML-based models, but they also need the faster response time of the edge to make adjustments at the tool level. Balancing these requirements is a mas... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


SEMICON West was held in Phoenix this week, with presentations covering heterogeneous integration, AI, quantum, supply chain resilience, and more. Amid the buzz of the conference, some key manufacturing and test announcements were made this week: The strategic importance of the Phoenix area hub was highlighted. Amkor Technology broke ground this week on its advanced packaging and test camp... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


Samsung and SK hynix joined OpenAI's Stargate initiative to ensure there will be enough memory chips to meet the needs of AI data centers. The goal is to produce up to 900,000 DRAM wafer starts per month. OpenAI also inked agreements to explore the development of next-gen data centers in Korea. Axcelis Technologies (ion implantation systems) will merge with Veeco Instruments (compound semic... » read more

Smarter Packaging: How AI is Reshaping Assembly and Materials Control


When a multi-die package worth $500 fails final test because of a defect that originated three process steps earlier, the economics of advanced packaging become painfully clear. Each excursion carries downstream costs that ripple across assembly, final test, and even system qualification. As packaging margins tighten, the industry is betting on artificial intelligence (AI) to catch those pro... » read more

Collaboration Is Key To Growing Semiconductor Industry


John Kibarian, CEO and co-founder of PDF Solutions and a member of the ESD Alliance (ESDA) Governing Council, will deliver a keynote during the CEO Summit at SEMICON West in October titled “Revolutionizing Semiconductor Collaboration: The Emergence of AI-Driven Industry Platforms.” He recently shared with me a summary of what his talk will cover and his perspective on why collabora... » read more

Lessons From 30 Years In The Trenches On The Future Of Semiconductor Manufacturing


The semiconductor industry has always been a story of constant evolution, titans rising and falling, technologies advancing at breakneck speed, and billions of dollars riding on the difference between first and second place. And today, AI, geopolitics and the increased need for collaboration are reshaping the chip industry once again. After more than three decades navigating the complexities... » read more

Infusing Trust Into The Supply Chain


An expanding supply chain of dies feeding multi-die products is prompting chipmakers to reassess and expand on ways to instill trust from end to end. This reaches deeper than just connecting disparate data. It requires integrating complex systems across vendors and protecting vendor data while instilling confidence in their customers and partners. Yet despite the time and effort that has bee... » read more

Blog Review: September 3


Cadence's Sriram Sharma Kalluri compares convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and transformers to show how their different architectures give them particular strengths and why the choice between them depends on the specific task, the available data, and the computational resources. Siemens' John McMillan provides a primer on the major IC package types, how they influence system design, therm... » read more

Secure Data Sharing To Promote Collaboration


As the semiconductor industry evolves toward a $1-trillion revenue milestone by 2030, fueled largely by AI applications, its challenges have magnified—a globalized supply chain, increasingly complex chip architectures and mounting cybersecurity demands. Assessing how data collaboration occurs within the ecosystem is essential, while secure data collaboration facilitated by cutting-edge pla... » read more

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