Week In Review: Semiconductor Manufacturing & Test


The Biden Administration’s export bans for semiconductor manufacturing equipment are delaying expansion plans for Chinese chipmakers, Nikkei Asia reports. Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) has halted work on its second memory plant near Wuhan, and ChangXin Memory Technologies (CMTX) says its second production facility, slated to open in 2023, will be delayed until 2024 or 2025. In an effo... » read more

Week In Review: Semiconductor Manufacturing, Test


Chips for consumer devices are down, but the overall chip industry is actively preparing for the next phase of growth. Worldwide silicon wafer shipments, which are an aggregate view of all the various semiconductor segments, hit an all-time high in 2022, increasing 4% to 14,713 million square inches (MSI). Wafer revenue, meanwhile, rose 9.5% to $13.8 billion over the same period, SEMI reported ... » read more

Week In Review: Semiconductor Manufacturing, Test


SEMI , SEMI Europe and European Commission representatives, in consultation with semiconductor industry stakeholders, proposed initiatives to overcome the skills shortage in Europe’s microelectronics industry: Create an industry image campaign to raise public awareness on how technology is shaping the future, and how workers can establish careers in the semiconductor industry. Remove ... » read more

Week In Review: Semiconductor Manufacturing, Test


Chinese memory chip maker YMTC and dozens of other Chinese entities are "at risk" of being added to a trade blacklist as soon as Dec. 6, a U.S. Commerce Department official said in prepared remarks seen by Reuters. SMIC co-CEO Zhao Haijun said on an earnings call that recent export controls from the United States will have an "adverse impact" on the company's production. The U.K. has rule... » 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

SiPs: The Best Things in Small Packages


System-in-package (SiP) is quickly emerging as the package option of choice for a growing number of applications and markets, setting off a frenzy of activity around new materials, methodologies, and processes. SiP is an essential packaging platform that integrates multiple functionalities onto a single substrate, which enables lower system cost, design flexibility, and superior electrical p... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Automotive, Mobility Hyundai announced all of its vehicles will be software-defined vehicles (SDVs) by 2025. The company said all newly launched Hyundai vehicles will be able to receive over-the-air software updates next year, and that it expects to register 20 million vehicles to its Connected Car Services system by 2025. Hyundai also said it will invest the equivalent of more than $12 billio... » read more

Hybrid Bonding Moves Into The Fast Lane


The industry’s unquenchable thirst for I/O density and faster connections between chips, particularly logic and cache memory, is transforming system designs to include 3D architectures, and hybrid bonding has become an essential component in that equation. Hybrid bonding involves die-to-wafer or wafer-to-wafer connection of copper pads that carry power and signals and the surrounding diele... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


From pandemic to war — some of the news this week highlights reactions to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Pervasive computing, IoT, 5G and beyond SpaceX sent Starlink satellite dishes to Ukraine to enable Ukrainian access to the Internet. The caveat is the uplink signals from satellite equipment can be used to triangulate the position of the dish, which can then be hit by missile. The dis... » read more

A Broad Look Inside Advanced Packaging


Choon Lee, chief technology officer of JCET, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about the semiconductor market, Moore’s Law, chiplets, fan-out packaging, and manufacturing issues. What follows are excerpts of that discussion. SE: Where are we in the semiconductor cycle right now? Lee: If you look at 2020, it was around 10% growth in the overall semiconductor industry. ... » read more

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