Zero Trust Security In Chip Manufacturing


More equipment vendors and more IP are making the data in a fab much more valuable than in the past, and a potential target for hackers. What’s needed is a different approach to architecting and deploying services and equipment, so breaches can be stopped before they affect other equipment and data, and a better way of sharing data. Brian Buras, production analytics solution architect at Adva... » read more

Driving Toward Net-Zero: Key Takeaways From Semiconductor Sustainability Summit


To address the climate crisis, countries around the world are pursuing ambitious targets to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 under the Paris Agreement. In March, Taiwan redoubled its focus on decarbonization by announcing its net-zero pathway, while its Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) under the Executive Yuan is reshaping the Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act in... » read more

Nova METRION Use Cases


Several use cases that we will explore for the Nova METRION® system include contamination control, process excursion prevention, reactor matching, and uniformity control. The objectives of these use cases are to detect contaminants which can kill devices, improve barrier layer and source/drain function, maintain deposition uniformity that impacts downstream processes, and ensure wafer-to-wafer... » read more

Increased Photomask Density And Its Impact On EDA


The ability to print curvilinear shapes on photomasks can have big repercussions on semiconductor design. Aki Fujimura, CEO of D2S, explains why mask rule checking has been bound by complex design rules, and why curvilinear shapes are important for reducing margin and simplifying the chip design process. » read more

Silent Data Corruption


Defects can creep into chip manufacturing from anywhere, but the problem is getting worse at advanced nodes and in advanced packages where reduced pin access can make testing much more difficult. Ira Leventhal, vice president of U.S. Applied Research and Technology at Advantest America, talks about what’s causing these so-called silent data errors, how to find them, and why it now requires ma... » read more

Systematic Yield Issues Now Top Priority At Advanced Nodes


Systematic yield issues are supplanting random defects as the dominant concern in semiconductor manufacturing at the most advanced process nodes, requiring more time, effort, and cost to achieve sufficient yield. Yield is the ultimate hush hush topic in semiconductor manufacturing, but it's also the most critical because it determines how many chips can be profitably sold. "At older nodes, b... » read more

Making Chips Yield Faster At Leading-Edge Nodes


Simulation for semiconductor manufacturing is heating up, particularly at the most advanced nodes where data needs to be analyzed in the context of factors such as variation and defectivity rates. Semiconductor Engineering sat down with David Fried, corporate vice president of computational products at Lam Research, to talk about what's behind Lam's recent acquisition of Esgee Technologies, ... » read more

Improving Concurrent Chip Design, Manufacturing, And Test Flows


Semiconductor design, manufacturing, and test are becoming much more tightly integrated as the chip industry seeks to optimize designs using fewer engineers, setting the stage for greater efficiencies and potentially lower chip costs without just relying on economies of scale. The glue between these various processes is data, and the chip industry is working to weave together various steps t... » read more

Where All The Semiconductor Investments Are Going


Companies and countries are funneling huge sums of money into semiconductor manufacturing, materials, and research — at least a half-trillion dollars over the next decade, and maybe much more — to guarantee a steady supply of chips and know-how to support growth across a wide swath of increasingly data-centric industries. The build-out of a duplicate supply chain that can guarantee capac... » read more

Semiconductor Manufacturing: Tradeoffs Between Performance, Energy Consumption & Cybersecurity Controls


A new research paper titled "Simulating Energy and Security Interactions in Semiconductor Manufacturing: Insights from the Intel Minifab Model" was published by researchers at Idaho National Laboratory, University of Texas at Austin, University of Texas at San Antonio and George Mason University. Abstract: "Semiconductor manufacturing is a highly complex. Fabrication plants must deal with r... » read more

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