Expanding Advanced Packaging Production In The U.S.


The United States is taking the first steps toward bringing larger-scale IC packaging production capabilities back to the U.S. as supply chain concerns and trade tensions grow. The U.S. is among the leaders in developing packages, especially new and advanced forms of the technology that promise to shake up the semiconductor landscape. And while the U.S. has several packaging vendors, North A... » read more

GaN Application Base Widens, Adoption Grows


Gallium nitride (GaN) is beginning to show up across a broad range of power semiconductor applications due to its wide bandgap, enabling fast-charging, very high speeds, and much smaller form factors than silicon-based chips. Unlike silicon carbide (SiC), another wide-bandgap technology, GaN is a lateral rather than a vertical device. GaN tops out at about 900 volts, which limits its use in ... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Packaging and test Taiwan’s ASE--the world’s largest OSAT--has announced the proposed sale and disposal of equity interests in its subsidiaries, GAPT Holding and ASE (Kun Shan), to Wise Road Capital, a private equity firm based in China. The deal has a value of $1.46 billion. The announcement is related to four ASE assembly and test facilities in China, including Shanghai, Suzhou, Kunsh... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Automotive The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued Nvidia to block the company’s $40 billion acquisition of Arm. The FTC said in a press statement that “the proposed vertical deal would give one of the largest chip companies control over the computing technology and designs that rival firms rely on to develop their own competing chips. … the combined firm would have the means and in... » read more

China Accelerates Foundry, Power Semi Efforts


China has unveiled several initiatives to advance its domestic semiconductor industry, including a new and massive fab expansion campaign in the foundry, gallium-nitride (GaN), and silicon carbide (SiC) markets. The nation is making a big push into what it calls “third-generation semiconductors,” which is a misnomer. The term actually refers to two existing and common power semiconductor... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers China’s Tsinghua Unigroup is in trouble. The group is the parent company of China’s YMTC, a 3D NAND supplier, and other chip ventures. It is close to moving into bankruptcy proceedings. Now, a consortium led by Alibaba has emerged as the frontrunner to take over Tsinghua Unigroup, according to a report from Bloomberg. That deal would keep the company afloat, the report said. ... » read more

End In Sight For Chip Shortages?


The current wave of semiconductor and IC packaging shortages is expected to extend well into 2022, but there are also signs that supply may finally catch up with demand. The same is true for manufacturing capacity, materials and equipment in both the semiconductor and packaging sectors. Nonetheless, after a period of shortages in all segments, the current school of thought is that chip suppl... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers AMD has rolled out its new MI200 series products, the first exascale-class GPU accelerators. Using a fan-out bridge packaging technology, the MI200 series are designed for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The MI200 series accelerators feature a multi-die GPU architecture with 128GB of HBM2e memory. Typically, the HBM2e memory stack a... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers After years in the works, GlobalFoundries is finally a public company. But on its first day of trading on Thursday (Oct. 28), shares of the foundry vendor slipped a bit. GF finished its first day of trading at $46.40. This compares to the $47 per share it priced in the initial public offering (IPO), according a report to Reuters. The chipmaker has a market capitalization of about $2... » read more

Scaling Bump Pitches In Advanced Packaging


Interconnects for advanced packaging are at a crossroads as an assortment of new package types are pushing further into the mainstream, with some vendors opting to extend the traditional bump approaches while others roll out new ones to replace them. The goal in all cases is to ensure signal integrity between components in IC packages as the volume of data being processed increases. But as d... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →