Metrology Digs Deep To Produce Next-Generation 3D NAND


Each generation of 3D NAND packs about 30% more bits than the previous version, with current devices storing up to 2 terabits of data in a die the size of a fingernail. With new product introductions shrinking from 18 months to every 12 months, chipmakers are constantly innovating to enable this prodigious scaling pace. 3D NAND technology is a core ingredient in mobile phones, solid-state dr... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


China's Hefei Lumiverse Technology reportedly has developed a desktop-sized High Harmonic Generation light source that generates wavelengths as small as 1nm. One customer already has used it to produce 14nm chips, which was the original target node for EUV, according to one report. As a point of comparison, TSMC and Samsung didn't start using EUV until the 7nm node, relying instead on immersion... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


SK hynix is ramping HBM manufacturing capacity to meet explosive demand for AI data centers. The company will launch 16-stack HBM4 next year, and up to 12-stack HBM4E. HBM5 and HBM5E will be introduced between 2029 and 2031, reports Business Korea. China will not have access to NVIDIA’s most advanced chips, President Trump told 60 Minutes. The Dutch economy minister said Nexperia's chip... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


San Francisco-based Substrate raised more than $100 million to build a vertically integrated foundry that uses particle accelerators to produce "the world's brightest beams, enabling a new method of advanced X-ray lithography." The company claims its technology is comparable to ASML's high NA EUV, and notes it can extend well beyond 2nm. ASML has not publicly commented. The Nexperia chip sho... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


Retaliations and countermoves leading up to planned trade talks between the U.S. and China led experts to wonder, 'Who's winning?' New activity on this front: China issued questionnaires to some U.S. semiconductor firms as part of an anti-dumping probe, demanding detailed data on sales, profit margins, logistics costs and Chinese customer names for analog chips. The probe appears aimed at ... » read more

Why In-Memory Computation Is So Important For Edge AI


In popular media, “AI” usually means large language models running in expensive, power-hungry data centers. For many applications, though, smaller models running on local hardware are a much better fit. Autonomous vehicles need to respond in real-time, without data transmission delays. Medical and industrial applications often depend on sensitive data that cannot be shared with third par... » read more

Chip Industry Technical Paper Roundup: Oct. 21


New technical papers recently added to Semiconductor Engineering’s library: [table id=484 /] Find more semiconductor research papers here. » read more

3D Stacked HBM and Accelerators for LLMs: Heat Management and PDN (Georgia Tech, SK Hynix)


A new technical paper titled "3D Stacked HBM and Compute Accelerators for LLM: Optimizing Thermal Management and Power Delivery Efficiency" was published by a researcher from Georgia Institute of Technology and SK Hynix. Abstract "Advanced packaging is becoming essential for designing hardware accelerators for large language models (LLMs). Different architectures such as 2.5D integration of... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


Samsung and SK hynix joined OpenAI's Stargate initiative to ensure there will be enough memory chips to meet the needs of AI data centers. The goal is to produce up to 900,000 DRAM wafer starts per month. OpenAI also inked agreements to explore the development of next-gen data centers in Korea. Axcelis Technologies (ion implantation systems) will merge with Veeco Instruments (compound semic... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


The U.S. is considering annual approvals for Samsung and SK hynix to export chipmaking tools and materials to their factories in China, replacing perpetual waivers granted under the validated end user system, reports Bloomberg. The proposal, presented by the U.S. Commerce Department to South Korean officials, would require the companies to reapply each year for specific quantities of restricted... » read more

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