The Bumpy Road To 450mm


By Mark LaPedus After its formation nearly 20 months ago, a 450mm consortium has reached its latest milestone by recently completing a cleanroom and installing the first 450mm demonstration tools in the facility. The so-called Global 450 Consortium (G450C) also has set a goal to bring 450mm fabs into high-volume manufacturing at the 10nm or 7nm nodes by 2018. That gives the industry a littl... » read more

Foundry Models In Transition


By Jeff Chappell There may have been a time when AMD founder Jerry Sanders famous quote: "real men (i.e., real companies) have their own fabs” rang true, but in today's business climate it seems quaint at best. Fabless or fab-lite business models are more popular than ever today, while some IDMs have turned back the clock, so to speak, looking to improve capacity utilization and revenues ... » read more

Supply Chain Catch-Up


There always will be a few big companies marching to the latest process node available to them. The problem these days isn’t their commitment to pushing forward. It’s the baggage train following them. It’s getting longer, more diverse, and in some cases, it’s falling out of sync. The foundries are out in front with 14nm finFETs, and they’re already working on 10nm transistors—pos... » read more

Uncertainty Ahead


If finFETs work as planned, it’s likely they will show up in every complex SoC for decades to come. Adding another dimension to transistors has enormous potential at advanced nodes, and maybe even at older nodes. 3D transistors also could be part of stacked die, and they can be combined with fully depleted SOI—two other options for reducing power. Moreover, it’s likely that whatever G... » read more

More Than Data Management


By Ann Steffora Mutschler Managing the people, the data and the technology are just as important as meeting the market window given that without these, the entire project wouldn’t function. Throw huge data set sizes, different cultures and business management issues into the mix and the challenges are many. Fortunately, these are issues that the semiconductor industry has been refining for ... » read more

Directed Self-Assembly Grows Up


By Mark LaPedus At last year’s SPIE Advanced Lithography conference, Christopher Bencher, a member of the technical staff at Applied Materials, said the buzz surrounding directed self-assembly (DSA) technology resembled the fervor generated at the famous Woodstock rock concert in 1969. This was clearly evident from the tumultuous and free-flowing movement that threatened the status quo o... » read more

Moore’s Law 2.0


By Ed Sperling Doubling the number of transistors on a piece of silicon every 18 to 24 months used to be synonymous with engineering progress, but as the semiconductor world migrates from processors to SoCs the fundamental basis of Moore’s Law is losing its meaning. Even its famous timetable is slipping. For one thing, it’s simply too expensive and difficult to migrate from one node to ... » read more

The Week In Review: Feb. 25


By Mark LaPedus Is China set to bail out a U.S. government technology darling? Two Chinese automotive companies, Geely and Dongfeng Motor, are reported to have bid between $200 million and $350 million for a majority stake in Fisker, the maker of plug-in hybrid cars. If that happens Fisker—which has $192 million in U.S. federal government loan guarantees—could be headed to China, according... » read more

Foundry Arms Race Under Way


By Mark LaPedus A year ago, chipmakers were reeling from a severe shortage of 28nm foundry capacity, prompting foundries to ramp up their fabs at a staggering pace. At the time, foundries were unable to keep up with huge and unforeseen demand for mobile chips. The shortfall was also caused by low yields and the overall lack of installed 28nm capacity. Today, the 28nm crunch is largely ov... » read more

Accelerating Moore’s Law


By Ed Sperling Ever since the inception of Moore’s Law, process nodes have moved forward at a rate of once every 18 to 24 months. Companies have been talking about slowing down the rate of progression as things get harder, but at least for the next couple of process nodes something very strange will occur—Moore’s Law will accelerate. The root cause is growing competition for a shrinki... » read more

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