What’s The Best Advanced Packaging Option?


As traditional chip designs become more unwieldy and expensive at each node, many IC vendors are exploring or pursuing alternative approaches using advanced packaging. The problem is there are too many advanced packaging options on the table already, and the list continues to grow. Moreover, each option has several tradeoffs and challenges, and all of them are still relatively expensive. ... » read more

Less Margin, More Respins, And New Markets


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the impact of multi-physics and new market applications on chip design with John Lee, general manager and vice president of ANSYS' Semiconductor Business Unit; Simon Burke, distinguished engineer at Xilinx; Duane Boning, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT; and Thomas Harms, director EDA/IP Alliance at Infineon. What foll... » read more

Driving With Chiplets


The first examples of the upper class of vehicles that can drive autonomously on the highway already have arrived on the market or will be introduced to the market in the coming years. Travel on the highway was selected as the first application because the number of objects that have to be taken into account in front of, next to, and behind the vehicle is manageable. This means the required ... » read more

Automation And Correct By Construction Will Empower 3D-IC Adoption


When research on 3D ICs was in full swing around 2009, I had been researching on how through-silicon-via (TSV) was related to thermal in a semiconductor chip-making company, and it seemed logical that 3D ICs would become mainstream. However, during the past 10 years, use of 3D stacked die has been applied to only a few applications, such as memory or image sensors, and the 2.5D solution using i... » read more

Sidestepping Moore’s Law


Calvin Cheung, vice president of engineering at ASE, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about advanced packaging, the challenges involved with the technology, and the implications for Moore’s Law. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: What are some of the big issues with IC packaging today? Cheung: Moore’s Law is slowing down, but transistor scaling will co... » read more

CEO Outlook: It Gets Much Harder From Here


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss what's changing across the semiconductor industry with Wally Rhines, CEO emeritus at Mentor, a Siemens Business; Jack Harding, president and CEO of eSilicon; John Kibarian, president and CEO of PDF Solutions; and John Chong, vice president of product and business development for Kionix. What follows are excerpts of that discussion, which was held in... » read more

Moore’s Law Now Requires Advanced Packaging


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss advanced packaging with Calvin Cheung, vice president of engineering at ASE; Walter Ng, vice president of business management at UMC; Ajay Lalwani, vice president of global manufacturing operations at eSilicon; Vic Kulkarni, vice president and chief strategist in the office of the CTO at ANSYS; and Tien Shiah, senior manager for memory at Samsung. W... » read more

New Design Approaches At 7/5nm


The race to build chips with a multitude of different processing elements and memories is making it more difficult to design, verify and test these devices, particularly when AI and leading-edge manufacturing processes are involved. There are two fundamental problems. First, there are much tighter tolerances for all of the components in those designs due to proximity effects. Second, as a re... » read more

Packaging Biz Faces Challenges in 2019


The IC packaging industry is bracing for slower growth, if not uncertainty, in 2019, even though advanced packaging remains a bright spot in the market. Generally, IC packaging houses saw strong demand in the first part of 2018, but the market cooled in the second half of the year due to a slowdown in memory. Going forward, the slower IC packaging market is expected to extend into the first ... » read more

Where Advanced Packaging Makes Sense


Semiconductor Engineering sat down with Chenglin Liu, director of package engineering at Marvell; John Hunt, senior director of engineering at ASE; Eric Tosaya, senior director of package manufacturing at eSilicon; and Juan Rey, vice president of engineering for Calibre at Mentor, a Siemens Business. What follows are excerpts of that discussion, which was held in front of a live audience at MEP... » read more

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