tag: Photronics

Mask Complexity, Cost, And Change
By Gregory Haley - 22 May, 2025 - Comments: 0

Experts at the Table: As leading-edge lithography nodes push further into EUV and beyond, mask-making has become one of the most critical and costly aspects of semiconductor manufacturing. At the same time, non-EUV applications are stretching the lifetime of older tools and processes, challenging the industry to find new solutions for both ends of the spectrum. Semiconductor Engineering sat dow... » read more

Industry Luminaries Highlight Opportunities For Advancing The Non-EUV Leading Edge
By Jan Willis - 19 Dec, 2023 - Comments: 0

The eBeam Initiative’s 12th annual Luminaries survey in 2023 reported a range of nodes from >5nm to 14nm as the most advanced non-EUV nodes using 193i lithography. A panel of semiconductor photomask and lithography experts debated several of the survey results, including this one, to provide more insights behind the results. Aki Fujimura, CEO of D2S, Inc., the managing company sponsor of t... » read more

Curvilinear Photomasks Can Be Made Today
By Jan Willis - 21 Apr, 2022 - Comments: 0

Multi-beam mask writers (MBMWs) and GPU-accelerated curvilinear ILT are enabling curvilinear photomasks to be made today. Despite the benefits of improved process windows, curvilinear photomask adoption is slow. Industry luminaries surveyed by the eBeam Initiative in 2021 ranked photomask inspection and infrastructure as the top barriers to adoption, as shown in figure 1. Yet only 4% say the b... » read more

Photomask Shortages Grow At Mature Nodes
By Mark LaPedus - 21 Apr, 2022 - Comments: 2

A surge in demand for chips at mature nodes, coupled with aging photomask-making equipment at those geometries, are causing significant concern across the supply chain. These issues began to surface only recently, but they are particularly worrisome for photomasks, which are critical for chip production. Manufacturing capacity is especially tight for photomasks at 28nm and above, driving up ... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test
By Mark LaPedus - 18 Mar, 2022 - Comments: 0

Chipmakers, OEMs Intel continues to build more fabs. First, the company announced fabs in Arizona and then Ohio. Now, Intel plans to invest up to €80 billion in the European Union over the next decade. As part of the effort, Intel plans to build two semiconductor fabs in Magdeburg, Germany. Construction is expected to begin in the first half of 2023 and production planned to come online in 2... » read more

The Right Project Is Key For Photomask Adoption Of Deep Learning
By Jan Willis - 17 Feb, 2022 - Comments: 0

Deep learning (DL) has become an integral part of the success of many companies. There have been many papers and some reported successes in semiconductor manufacturing, yet only 22% of the luminaries participating in the 2021 eBeam Initiative Luminaries survey see DL as a competitive advantage for photomask making by next year, as shown in figure 1. Looking at that chart, the luminaries believe... » read more

Luminaries See Growth Opportunities For Photomask Writers
By Jan Willis - 20 Jan, 2022 - Comments: 0

Multi-beam mask writers (MBMWs) are the new kid on the block of the photomask writers, so growth predictions aren’t surprising. In fact, 90% of the industry luminaries surveyed by the eBeam Initiative think that new MBMW purchases will increase over the next three years, as shown in figure 1. Looking at that chart, industry luminaries predict sales of new photomask writers to increase across ... » read more

Perspectives On Why EUV Photomasks Are More Expensive
By Jan Willis - 20 Dec, 2021 - Comments: 0

There are fewer photomasks per wafer using EUV lithography, but each EUV photomask is more expensive. Given that, it’s not a surprise that a majority (74%) of industry luminaries surveyed in July say that EUV photomasks will contribute to an increase in photomask revenues for 2021 as shown in figure 1. In a 20-minute video, a panel of experts share their perspectives on what drives EUV photom... » read more

Semiconductor Photomask Revenues Predicted To Increase In 2021
By Jan Willis - 18 Nov, 2021 - Comments: 0

A majority (72%) of industry luminaries surveyed in July predict an increase in photomask revenues for 2021, as shown in figure 1. SEMI also predicts revenues to increase around 9% from $4.4B in 2020 to $4.8B in 2021. In a 12-minute video, a panel of experts share their perspectives on what’s behind the growth trend, how the pandemic has impacted the photomask industry, and how it compares to... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test
By Mark LaPedus - 12 Nov, 2021 - Comments: 0

Chipmakers AMD has rolled out its new MI200 series products, the first exascale-class GPU accelerators. Using a fan-out bridge packaging technology, the MI200 series are designed for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The MI200 series accelerators feature a multi-die GPU architecture with 128GB of HBM2e memory. Typically, the HBM2e memory stack a... » read more

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