Week In Review, Design, Low Power


Financial News Cadence announced second quarter revenue of $858 million, an increase of 17.9% compared with the same period a year ago when revenue was $728 million. President and CEO Anirudh Devgan said the company’s results are “emblematic of the megatrends of the long-term strength of semis, systems companies investing more in silicon, and the convergence of system and chip designs.�... » read more

Fab Investments Head Toward Record High


Corporations and governments around the globe are making record-breaking investments in chip manufacturing plants amid a major push to make the semiconductor supply chain more robust and less prone to shortages caused by everything from market variations to geopolitical interruptions. These investments — which range from updating existing fabrication facilities to building entirely new fab... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Ramping capacity Samsung is considering building as many as 11 fabs in central Texas, investing an estimated $200 billion and creating as many as 10,000 jobs. The plans came to light when the company filed paperwork for tax breaks. Samsung already has broken ground on a new $17 billion fab in Taylor, Texas. The remaining nine fabs, including two in nearby Austin, would be built over the next c... » read more

Hybrid Bonding Moves Into The Fast Lane


The industry’s unquenchable thirst for I/O density and faster connections between chips, particularly logic and cache memory, is transforming system designs to include 3D architectures, and hybrid bonding has become an essential component in that equation. Hybrid bonding involves die-to-wafer or wafer-to-wafer connection of copper pads that carry power and signals and the surrounding diele... » read more

Film Failure in Multilayer Systems for Semiconductor Devices


Researchers at MIT, Yonsei University (Seoul, Korea) just published this technical paper titled "Interfacial Delamination at Multilayer Thin Films in Semiconductor Devices." According to the abstract "In this work, the effect of thermomechanical stress on the failure of multilayered thin films on Si substrates was studied using analytical calculations and various thermomechanical tests." ... » read more

Week In Review, Manufacturing, Test


The U.S. is attempting to restrict sales of ASML’s deep ultra-violet (DUV) litho systems to China, according to a report from Bloomberg. The U.S. has been working to limit China's access to advanced technology for some time, and it has already limited sales of extreme ultra-violet (EUV), which is used to develop chips at the most advanced process nodes. DUV, in contrast, is used for older-nod... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Tools, IP, design Infineon Technologies acquired NoBug, a provider of design verification services. The acquisition will help Infineon expand its IoT R&D business in eastern Europe. “This considerable increase in superior verification know-how lets Infineon offer its customers more of its leading products at a reduced time-to-market,” said Guenter Krasser, Vice President and Managing D... » read more

Week In Review, Manufacturing, Test


Samsung announced initial production of its 3nm process node, which uses a gate-all-around (nanosheet) transistor structure that the company calls Multi-Bridge-Channel FET (MBCFET). The first-generation 3nm process can reduce power consumption by up to 45% compared with a 5nm process, as well as improve performance by 23% and reduce area by 16%, according to the company. The second-generation 3... » read more

EDA Gaps At The Leading Edge


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss why new approaches are required for heterogeneous designs, with Bari Biswas, senior vice president for the Silicon Realization Group at Synopsys; John Lee, general manager and vice president of the Ansys Semiconductor business unit; Michael Jackson, corporate vice president for R&D at Cadence; Prashant Varshney, head of product for Microsoft Azu... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Broadcom announced it will acquire cloud computing and virtualization company VMware for about $61 billion in cash and stock, and assume $8 billion in VMware net debt. If all goes as planned, the Broadcom Software Group will rebrand and operate as VMware. “The combined solutions will enable customers, including leaders in all industry verticals, greater choice and flexibility to build, run, m... » read more

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