tag: PDF Solutions

Hunting For Hardware-Related Errors In Data Centers
By Anne Meixner - 07 Feb, 2023 - Comments: 2

The semiconductor industry is urgently pursuing design, monitoring, and testing strategies to help identify and eliminate hardware defects that can cause catastrophic errors. Corrupt execution errors, also known as silent data errors, cannot be fully isolated at test — even with system-level testing — because they occur only under specific conditions. To sort out the environmental condit... » read more

Ramping Up IC Predictive Maintenance
By Anne Meixner - 07 Feb, 2023 - Comments: 0

The chip industry is starting to add technology that can predict impending failures early enough to stave off serious problems, both in manufacturing and in the field. Engineers increasingly are employing in-circuit monitors embedded in SoC designs to catch device failures earlier in the production flow. But for ICs in the field, data tracing from design to application use only recently has ... » read more

Chip Industry’s Earnings Roundup
By Linda Christensen - 06 Feb, 2023 - Comments: 0

Editor's Note: Updated throughout February 2023 for additional earnings releases. Many companies reported revenue growth in the most recent quarter, but the latest round of chip industry earnings releases reflected some major themes: Demand for consumer electronics softened due to inflation, rising interest rates, and post-pandemic market saturation, creating a slump in the memory chip ... » read more

Week In Review: Semiconductor Manufacturing, Test
By Karen Heyman - 13 Jan, 2023 - Comments: 0

Global semiconductor sales hit $45.5 billion during the month of November 2022, according to SIA’s January announcement. Year-over-year sales increased in November in the Americas (5.2%), Europe (4.5%), and Japan (1.2%), but decreased in Asia Pacific/rest of world (-13.9%) and China (-21.2%). Month-to-month sales were down across all regions. The United States, Mexico and Canada vowed to... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing
By Susan Rambo - 13 Jan, 2023 - Comments: 0

The head of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Jennifer Homendy, voiced concern about the impact of heavier electric vehicles (EVs) will have in crashes with smaller cars with internal combustion engines (ICEs). Homendy compared the weight of the GMC Hummer and the Ford F-150’s EV to ICE version and found the EVs are 2,000 to 6,000 pounds heavier. The extra weight in EVs is... » read more

Screening For Silent Data Errors
By Anne Meixner - 10 Jan, 2023 - Comments: 0

Engineers are beginning to understand the causes of silent data errors (SDEs) and the data center failures they cause, both of which can be reduced by increasing test coverage and boosting inspection on critical layers. Silent data errors are so named because if engineers don’t look for them, then they don’t know they exist. Unlike other kinds of faulty behaviors, these errors also can c... » read more

Systematic Yield Issues Now Top Priority At Advanced Nodes
By Laura Peters - 06 Dec, 2022 - Comments: 0

Systematic yield issues are supplanting random defects as the dominant concern in semiconductor manufacturing at the most advanced process nodes, requiring more time, effort, and cost to achieve sufficient yield. Yield is the ultimate hush hush topic in semiconductor manufacturing, but it's also the most critical because it determines how many chips can be profitably sold. "At older nodes, b... » read more

Adopting Predictive Maintenance On Fab Tools
By Anne Meixner - 06 Dec, 2022 - Comments: 0

Predictive maintenance, based on more and better sensor data from semiconductor manufacturing equipment, can reduce downtime in the fab and ultimately cut costs compared with regularly scheduled maintenance. But implementing this approach is non-trivial, and it can be disruptive to well-honed processes and flows. Not performing maintenance quickly enough can result in damage to wafers or the... » read more

Next Steps For Improving Yield
By Laura Peters - 08 Nov, 2022 - Comments: 0

Chipmakers are ramping new tools and methodologies to achieve sufficient yield faster, despite smaller device dimensions, a growing number of systematic defects, immense data volumes, and massive competitive pressure. Whether a 3nm process is ramping, or a 28nm process is being tuned, the focus is on reducing defectivity. The challenge is to rapidly identify indicators that can improve yield... » read more

Chip Industry Earnings: A Mixed Bag
By Linda Christensen - 28 Oct, 2022 - Comments: 0

Editor's Note: Updated the week of Oct. 31 and Nov. 7 for additional earnings releases. Although most companies reported revenue growth, this latest round of chip industry earnings releases reflected a few major themes: Lower future quarter guidance to varying degrees, due to the recent U.S. export restrictions related to China; Negative impact of the inflationary environment on corn... » read more

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