Checks into key chipmakers in Korea and Taiwan suggest current demand for equipment is still on the rise, with planned capex increases imminent and capacities set to increase into 2011, according to one industry analyst.
The 450mm transition continues to be a hotly debated topic. Scotten Jones from IC Knowledge responds to SEMI's John Ellis about 450mm production capabilities vs. efforts to improve 300mm, laying out his own numbers for 450mm costs and productivity.
Last week's IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference 2010 (ISSCC, Feb. 7-11, San Francisco, CA), offered many talks and papers on topics ranging from 3D integration to circuit design and memories. Here are just a few examples.
John Ellis from SEMI takes issue with "a pervasive misconception" about the economics and timing of a wafer-size transition to 450mm and how these have changed with the 2008-2009 industry bust, and suggests ways to tackle the issues surrounding 450mm and keep other technologies on-track.
Analysts offer their take on the long-rumored, and now official, deal that brings NOR flash firm Numonyx under Micron's wing.
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Dual Channel Pulse Testing Simplifies RF Transistor Characterization
Device engineers and test managers are under tremendous pressure to make sure products get to market quickly and perform reliably. This is especially true of RF ... Sponsored By:
Keithley Instruments
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High Precision Ion Beam Milling with Time of Flight Compensation
Advanced circuit editing (CE) becomes more and more difficult as semiconductor structures shrink. Time of Flight (ToF) compensation noticeably extends the utility ... Sponsored By:
FEI Company
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Backside Circuit Edit on Full-Thickness Silicon Devices
Backside Circuit Edit (CE) techniques, in which a Focused Ion Beam (FIB) operator accesses critical circuitry through the substrate of an IC, are popular with processor ... Sponsored By:
FEI Company
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Recent Developments in TEM Applications for the IC Industry
Scaling ICs to the 45-nanometer node or beyond requires precise measurement of film thickness, interfacial roughness, and chemical distribution. At those nodes, ... Sponsored By:
FEI Company
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A New Method of Wafer-Level Plan-View TEM Sample Preparation by DualBeam
Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is extremely important for obtaining high-resolution images with high materials contrast. Until now, plan-view TEM samples ... Sponsored By:
FEI Company
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