Experts At The Table: Process Technology Challenges


By Mark LaPedus Semiconductor Manufacturing & Design sat down to discuss future transistor, process and manufacturing challenges with Subramani Kengeri, vice president of advanced technology architecture at GlobalFoundries; Carlos Mazure, chief technical officer at Soitec; Raj Jammy, senior vice president and general manager of the Semiconductor Group at Intermolecular; and Girish Dixit, v... » read more

The Week In Review: Sept. 3


By Mark LaPedus The cellular chip supplier landscape is littered with corpses. So will 4G lead to the destruction of Qualcomm and Intel? That’s highly unlikely, according to a blog from Strategy Analytics. “With the recent announcement of a multimode LTE chipset from Intel, it seems likely that Qualcomm and Intel will maintain their status as the top two cellular radio chipset suppliers in... » read more

The Week In Review: Aug. 26


By Mark LaPedus The evolving relationship between humans and machines is the key theme of Gartner’s most "hyped” technologies in 2013. Gartner has chosen to feature the relationship between humans and machines due to the increased hype around smart machines, cognitive computing and the Internet of Things. Gartner also released its updated chart of hyped technologies. SunEdison, formerly... » read more

Experts At The Table: Process Technology Challenges


By Mark LaPedus Semiconductor Manufacturing & Design sat down to discuss future transistor, process and manufacturing challenges with Subramani Kengeri, vice president of advanced technology architecture at GlobalFoundries; Carlos Mazure, chief technical officer at Soitec; Raj Jammy, senior vice president and general manager of the Semiconductor Group at Intermolecular; and Girish Dixit, v... » read more

Over 65% Smartphone RF Switches SOI, Says Yole; Power Amps Next


By Adele Hars The industry research firm Yole Développement says that more than 65 percent of substrates used in fabricating switches for handsets are SOI-based. This is a high-growth part of the market, putting up double-digit increases. Like a standard SOI wafer, an RF SOI substrate has an active (“top”) layer on which CMOS transistors are built, with an isolating (“BOx”) ... » 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

GloFo Says 28nm FD-SOI Die Cost Much Less Than 28nm Bulk HPP


Posted by Adele Hars, Editor-in-Chief, Advanced Substrate News ~  ~ According to Shigeru Shimauchi, Country Manager, GlobalFoundries Japan, for the same level of performance, the die cost for 28nm FD-SOI will be substantially less than for 28nm bulk HPP (“high performance-plus”). Specifically, to get a 30%  increase in performance over 28nm bulk LPS PolySiON, HPP increases die ... » read more

The Week In Review: July 15


By Mark LaPedus There are more problems surfacing with extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. Yes, the light source remains a problem, but the resists appear to be in decent shape. “The next challenge is the mask blank,” said Stefan Wurm, director of Sematech’s lithography program. The new problem involves ion beam deposition, which apparently is causing defects and overfill on EUV masks... » read more

Consortium Mania Sweeps 450mm Landscape


By Mark LaPedus In the mid-1990s, the semiconductor industry embarked on a costly and problematic migration from 200mm to 300mm wafer fabs. At the time, the 300mm development efforts were in the hands of two groups—Sematech and a Japanese-led entity. The equipment industry was on the outside looking in. And as a result, the migration from 200mm to 300mm fabs was out of sync and a nightma... » read more

VLSI Kyoto – The SOI Papers


By Adele Hars There were some breakthrough FD-SOI and other excellent SOI-based papers that came out of the 2013 Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits in Kyoto (June 10-14, 2013). By way of explanation, VSLI comprises two symposia: one on Technology; one on Circuits. However, papers that are relevant to both were presented in “Jumbo Joint Focus” sessions.  The papers should all b... » read more

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