Week In Review: Semiconductor Manufacturing, Test

By Karen Heyman - 04 Nov, 2022 - Comments: 0

Nikkei Asia reports the U.S. is urging allies, including Japan, to restrict exports of advanced semiconductors and related technology to China. The U.S. holds 12% of the global semiconductor market, Japan has a 15% share, while Taiwan and South Korea each have about a 20% share. Some U.S. companies have called for other countries to adopt U.S.-style export curbs, arguing it is unfair for only A... » read more

Gearing Up For Next-Gen Power Semis

By Mark LaPedus - 16 Sep, 2021 - Comments: 0

After years in R&D, several vendors are moving closer to shipping power semiconductors and other products based on next-generation wide-bandgap technologies. These devices leverage the properties of new materials, such as aluminum nitride, diamond, and gallium oxide, and they are also utilized in different structures, such as vertical gallium-nitride power devices. But while many of thes... » read more

Sandia’s Fab Gets An Upgrade

By Nishita Rao - 17 Dec, 2019 - Comments: 0

Sandia National Laboratories just finished updating equipment in its microelectronics fab, marking the completion of the first phase of a 3-year fab upgrade program. The transition from 6-inch to 8-inch wafer sizes will align the Department of Energy national lab with industry standards to ensure easier access to tools, spare parts and raw materials. Sandia is a prestigious member of the... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Sept. 4

By Mark LaPedus - 04 Sep, 2018 - Comments: 0

Flat diamond chips Kanazawa University and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) have developed a process that solves a big issue for diamond semiconductors in power applications. Researchers have developed a water vapor annealing technique that creates atomically flat diamond surfaces. This brings diamond semiconductors one step closer to becoming more... » read more

The Race To Accelerate

By Ed Sperling - 12 Feb, 2018 - Comments: 1

Geoff Tate, CEO of [getentity id="22921" e_name="Flex Logix"], sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to discuss how the chip industry is changing, why that bodes well for embedded FPGAs, and what you need to be aware of when using programmable logic on the same die as other devices. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: What are the biggest challenges facing the chip industry... » read more

Reflection On 2017: Design And EDA

By Brian Bailey - 03 Jan, 2018 - Comments: 0

People love to make predictions, and most of the time they have it easy, but at Semiconductor Engineering, we ask them to look back on the predictions they make each year and to assess how close to the mark they were. We see what they missed and what surprised them. Not everyone accepts our offer to grade themselves, but most have this year. (Part one looked at the predictions associated with s... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Feb. 3

By Mark LaPedus - 03 Feb, 2015 - Comments: 0

Robotic plants In 2012, the European Commission launched the so-called Plantoid project. In the project, researchers hope to devise synthetic robotic plants. Inspired by plant roots, the robots could be used for soil monitoring and other applications. The group is devising so-called artifacts. These components resemble plants and plant roots. The new technologies expected to result from the... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: July 22

By Mark LaPedus - 22 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 0

Skateboarding on 2D materials Two-dimensional materials are gaining steam in the R&D labs. The 2D materials include graphene, boron nitride (BN) and the transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). These materials are attractive candidates for futuristic field-effect transistors (FETs). But researchers must gain more insight into these materials in order to understand their properties. For ... » read more

3D Integration: Extending Moore’s Law Into The Next Decade

By Cheryl Ajluni - 27 Aug, 2009 - Comments: 0

By Cheryl Ajluni At the 46th Design Automation Conference in San Francisco last month, attention turned to a discussion of how to extend the momentum of Moore’s Law into the next decade. One plausible solution, according to Philippe Magarshack, the general manager of Central CAD & Design Solutions at STMicroelectronics, is 3D stacking for complex System-on-Chips (SoCs). The concept of 3... » read more

Knowledge Centers
Entities, people and technologies explored

Shift Left Is The Tip Of The Iceberg

A transformative change is underway for semiconductor design and EDA. New languages, models, and abstractions will need to be created.

by Brian Bailey

Partitioning In The Chiplet Era

Understanding how chiplets interact under different workloads is critical to ensuring signal integrity and optimal performance in heterogeneous designs.

by Ann Mutschler

3.5D: The Great Compromise

Pros and cons of a middle-ground chiplet assembly that combines 2.5D and 3D-IC.

by Ed Sperling

AI’s Role In Chip Design Widens, Drawing In New Startups

Focus is on letting engineers do much more with the same or fewer resources — and less drudgery.

by Karen Heyman

Key Technologies To Extend EUV To 14 Angstroms

Alongside high-NA EUV will be better-performing photoresists, reduced roughness using passivation and etch, and lateral etching to reduce tip-to-tip dimensions.

by Laura Peters

What Comes After HBM For Chiplets

The standard for high-bandwidth memory limits design freedom at many levels, but that is required for interoperability. What freedoms can be taken from other functions to make chiplets possible?

by Brian Bailey

Memory Fundamentals For Engineers

eBook: Nearly everything you need to know about memory, including detailed explanations of the different types of memory; how and where these are used today; what's changing, which memories are successful and which ones might be in the future; and the limitations of each memory type.

by The SE Staff

Why Small Fab And Assembly Houses Are Thriving

Megafabs churning out the most advanced processors are not the only game in town.

by Bryon Moyer

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