Momentum Builds For Monolithic 3D ICs


The 2.5D/3D chip market is heating up on several fronts. On one front, stacked-die using through-silicon vias (TSVs) is taking root. In a separate area, Samsung is sampling the world’s first 3D NAND device, with Micron and SK Hynix expected to follow suit. And now, there is another technology generating steam—monolithic 3D integrated circuits. In stacked-die, bare die are connected using... » read more

What’s After 3D NAND?


By Mark LaPedus Planar NAND flash memory is on its last scaling legs, with 3D NAND set to become the successor to the ubiquitous 2D technology. Samsung Electronics, for one, already has begun shipping the industry’s first 3D NAND device, a 24-level, 128-gigabit chip. In addition, Micron and SK Hynix shortly will ship their respective 3D NAND devices. But the Toshiba-SanDisk duo are the lo... » read more

The Week In Review: Sept. 9


By Mark LaPedus SK Hynix’ DRAM fab in China caught on fire. The fire caused one minor injury, but it did not impact the equipment, according to reports. SK Hynix will re-open the fab soon, according to reports. Bob Halliday, Applied Materials’ CFO, gave a presentation at an analyst event, saying: “I think there’s probably more technology inflections going on right now than in years.... » read more

The Week In Review: Aug 5


By Mark LaPedus According to a nationwide online survey conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Crucial.com, 36% of those Americans who experienced PC problems in the past six months admit they have lashed out at their slow, underperforming computers by using profanity, screaming and shouting, or by striking it with a fist or other object. Those who experienced computer problems also indi... » read more

450mm: Out Of Sync


By Mark LaPedus The IC industry has been talking about it for ages, but vendors are finally coming to terms with a monumental shift in the business. The vast changes involve a pending and critical juncture, where the 450mm wafer size transition, new device architectures and other technologies will likely converge at or near the same time. In one possible scenario, 450mm fabs are projected ... » read more

New Approaches To Better Performance And Lower Power


By Ed Sperling Until 90nm, every feature shrink and rev of Moore’s Law included a side benefit of better power and performance. After that, improvements involved everything from different back-end processes to copper interconnects and transistor structures. But from 20nm onward, the future will rest with a combination of new materials, new architectures and new packaging approaches—and som... » read more

3D NAND Market Heats Up


By Mark LaPedus It’s the tale of two promising and separate 3D chip architectures. One technology is slowly taking root, while the other one is heating up. 3D stacked-die using through-silicon vias (TSVs) is on the slower path. Advanced chip-stacking has several challenges and is still a few years away from mass production. In contrast, 3D NAND is heating up, as Samsung and SK Hynix are a... » 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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