The March Toward Chiplets


The days of monolithic chips developed at the most advanced process nodes are rapidly dwindling. Nearly everyone working at the leading edge of design is looking toward some type of advanced packaging using discrete heterogeneous components. The challenge now is how to shift the whole chip industry into this disaggregated model. It's going to take time, effort, as well as a substantial reali... » read more

Chip Industry’s Technical Paper Roundup: Dec. 13


New technical papers added to Semiconductor Engineering’s library this week.[table id=70 /] If you have research papers you are trying to promote, we will review them to see if they are a good fit for our global audience. At a minimum, papers need to be well researched and documented, relevant to the semiconductor ecosystem, and free of marketing bias. There is no cost involved for us po... » read more

New Method to Measure, At The Wafer Scale, Direct Bonding Energies (CEA-LETI)


A new technical paper titled "Double cantilever beam bonding energy measurement using confocal IR microscopy" was published by researchers at Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CEA-LETI and SOITEC, Parc Technologique des Fontaines. "A new technique is assessed in order to measure, at the wafer scale, direct bonding energies. It is derived from the standard Double Cantilever Beam (DCB) method and uses int... » read more

Startup Funding: July 2022


Quantum computing may seem like a futuristic technology, but computation based on superposition and entanglement is here and investors are eager to get behind it. Two of July's rounds that passed the $100 million mark were for superconducting quantum processor companies, one of which is also developing EDA software to assist in designing quantum circuits. And it's not just mega-rounds. Two quan... » read more

Wafer Shortage Improvement In Sight For 300mm, But Not 200mm


The supply chain for bare wafers is off-kilter. Demand is appreciably higher than the wafer suppliers can keep up with, creating shortages that could last for years. For 300mm starting wafers, the top five big players — SEH and Sumco of Japan, Siltronic of Germany, GlobalWafers of Taiwan, and SK Siltron of Korea — finally took action over the last year, spending billions on new wafer fac... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers, OEMs Intel continues to build more fabs. First, the company announced fabs in Arizona and then Ohio. Now, Intel plans to invest up to €80 billion in the European Union over the next decade. As part of the effort, Intel plans to build two semiconductor fabs in Magdeburg, Germany. Construction is expected to begin in the first half of 2023 and production planned to come online in 2... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Fabs Intel has announced plans for an initial investment of more than $20 billion in the construction of two new leading-edge fabs in Ohio. Planning for the first two factories will start immediately, with construction expected to begin late in 2022. Production is expected to come online in 2025. As part of the announcement, Air Products, Applied Materials, Lam Research and Ultra Clean Technol... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Nvidia again made its case for acquiring Arm to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). “Arm is a private for-profit business at a crossroads. After acquiring Arm several years ago, SoftBank increased Arm’s headcount, hoping to spur long-term growth in several markets, including data center and personal computer, long dominated by Intel and x86. SoftBank’s investment phase has c... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers Apple has introduced its latest MacBook Pro notebooks built around the company’s new, in-house designed processors, dubbed the M1 Pro and M1 Max. The chips, to be incorporated in its 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro systems, are the most powerful devices developed by Apple. The CPUs in the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips deliver up to 70% faster performance than the first M1 device. Based ... » read more

More Shortages Seen For Silicon Wafers


Silicon wafer shipments have been on a torrid and record breaking pace in the first half of 2021, where demand continues to outstrip supply. So what’s in store for buyers of wafers for the remainder of 2021 and beyond? “Right now, the overall wafer pricing environment is becoming more favorable to wafer suppliers due to demand increase. Supply is getting tight and the average selling pri... » read more

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