Chip Industry Week In Review


The Design Automation Conference morphed into the Chips to Systems Conference, reflecting an industry shift from monolithic SoCs to assemblies of chiplets in various flavors of advanced packaging. The change drew a slew of students and a resurgent buzz, fueled by discussions about heterogeneous integration, reliability, and ways to leverage AI/ML to speed up design and verification processes. ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Aug. 24


Panel packaging consortium Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM has provided an update on a consortium that is developing panel-level IC packaging technologies. Fraunhofer IZM is leading the consortium. The R&D organization and its partners, including Intel and others, have made progress in terms of equipment, processes and other technologies in the so-called Pa... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Dec. 1


European R&D hub A new European hub for semiconductor R&D is open for business. The hub is part of an EU-funded program called ASCENT or Access to European Nanoelectronics Network. The program is aimed to give researchers access to chip and related technologies within three European R&D organizations--CEA-Leti, Imec and the Tyndall National Institute. As reported, ASCENT was originally f... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: June 16


Harmonic EUV The U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has devised an efficient extreme ultraviolet (EUV) source. The technology could one day be used for a new class of metrology tools, based on angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). This technique makes use of a photoelectric effect for studying materials. To enable the source, Berkeley Labs devel... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: April 7


Liquid metal for Terminator robots The Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tsinghua University have devised a robot-like, self-fueled liquid metal mollusk. The liquid metal alloy within the system can move by itself and change form like the shape-shifting T-1000 robot in the movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The system consists of a liquid metal motor. The liquid metal is a mix of gallium, i... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Feb. 11


Monolithic 3D SRAM project A group of companies have started a research project to propel the development of monolithic 3D chip technology. The research project, called COMPOSE³, involves the ability to stack transistors vertically. Within three years, the group hopes to unveil a proof of concept for building the world’s first 14nm, 3D-stacked SRAM cell based on III-V materials. Co... » read more