How To Make A Brain-On-A-Chip


By Mark LaPedus In October, Draper Laboratory and the University of South Florida (USF) disclosed an ambitious plan to develop a brain-on-a-chip. The idea is to devise a “micro-environment’’ that mimics the human brain. Researchers hope to study neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, strokes and concussions. The eventual goal is to study the effects of drugs and v... » read more

Node Skipping Reaches New Heights


By Mark LaPedus For years, silicon foundries have rolled out their respective leading-edge processes roughly on a two-year cadence. The long-standing goal has been to keep foundry customers on a competitive price, power and performance curve. But as leading-edge chipmakers move from the 28nm node and beyond, the predictable process progression is changing. And the phenomenon of “node skip... » read more

Facing Up To RC Delay


y Ed Sperling Resistance and capacitance delays have always been someone else’s problem to solve at some fuzzy process node in the future, and for the most part manufacturers and equipment makers have done a wizard-like job of making this problem go away. They can’t make it disappear anymore, though, and beginning at 14nm and beyond RC delay is becoming more than just an annoyance. The ... » read more

Mobile Memory Madness


By Mark LaPedus The insatiable thirst for more bandwidth in smartphones, tablets and other devices has prompted an industry standards body to revamp its mobile memory interface roadmap. As part of the changes, the Joint Electron Devices Engineering Council (JEDEC) has scaled back the initial version of Wide I/O technology and pushed out the introduction date of a true 3D stacked architectur... » read more

Moore’s Law Revisited


It’s no surprise that Moore’s Law can continue for many more generations. Intel’s road map already extends down to 5nm, most likely with carbon nanotube FETs, tunnel FETs, graphene TSVs and maybe even fully depleted SOI to replace bulk CMOS. The rest of the industry has been hanging back a node or two, gliding on the coattails of what Intel and companies like IBM, Samsung and STMicroel... » read more

Challenges Grow For EUV


By Mark LaPedus In the late 1990s, a group led by Intel launched a consortium to propel extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography into the mainstream. Originally, the consortium, dubbed the EUV LLC, envisioned the advent of EUV scanners that would move into production at the 65nm node. Clearly, the now-defunct consortium underestimated the difficulties and challenges associated with EUV. ASM... » read more

Economic Resilience


Check out the lines at the Apple store for iPhones and you have to wonder what all the economists are worrying about. It seems incongruous, but the electronics industry is faring well in the face of a global economy that is flat in the best of places, sluggish in others, and faltering everywhere else. So what’s up? Mobile computing is the answer. While predictions of the computer’s de... » read more

SPOTLIGHT ON FD-SOI, FINFETS AT IEEE SOI CONFERENCE
;1-4 OCT, NAPA


The 38th annual SOI Conference is coming right up. Sponsored by IEEE Electron Devices Society, this is the only dedicated SOI conference covering the full technology chain from materials to devices, circuits and system applications. Chaired this year by Gosia Jurczak (manager of the Memories Program at imec), this excellent conference is well worth attending. It’s where the giants of the ... » read more

NAND Enters Tough Cycle


By Mark LaPedus The NAND flash memory market is entering into a new and painful cycle, a period that will impact suppliers, OEMs and fab tool vendors alike. For some time, there has been an oversupply and depressed pricing in the NAND market. In mid-2011, Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix and Toshiba put on the brakes in their capital spending plans. And in recent months, NAND suppliers in total h... » read more

Universal Memories Fall Back To Earth


By Mark LaPedus Ten years ago, Intel Corp. declared that flash memory would stop scaling at 65nm, prompting the need for a new replacement technology. Thinking the end was near for flash, a number of companies began to develop various next-generation memory types, such as 3D chips, FeRAM, MRAM, phase-change memory (PCM), and ReRAM. Many of these technologies were originally billed as “uni... » read more

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