SEMICONDUCTORS BLOGS
Solid State Technology’s bloggers provide an insider’s point-of-view for electronic manufacturing such as semiconductor wafer fab, micro electromechanical systems (MEMS) manufacturing, and advanced packaging and test product announcements, industry tradeshows, process advances, and technologies.
INSIGHTS FROM THE LEADING EDGE
Dr. Phil Garrou gives his insight into leading edge developments in 3-D integration and advanced packaging, reporting the latest technical goings on from conferences, conversations, and more.
IFTLE 147 IME Updates 2.5D; Qualcomm Updates 2.5 / 3DIC at ICEP
05/13/2013
IME Updates Interposer ResearchIn the latest issue of Future Fab Int Singapores IME updates their 2.5D through-silicon interposer (TSI) technology development [link]GQ Lo, deputy Director Director of Research, and his 3D group point out that "3D IC...is confronting bottlenecks, such as tools for ...
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IFTLE 146 TSMC Apple Rumors; Gartner OSAT Mkt Numbers; Novati
05/04/2013
More Taiwan rumors on TSMC / Apple relationship Digitimes reports that TSMC will get 100% of the application processor orders for 2014 model iPhone [link] Digitimes further reports that "in order to satisfy the huge demand from Apple, TSMC has begun equipment move-in for the...
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IFTLE 145 GPU Roadmap, IEEE 3DIC back in SF; ConFab 2013 Pkging
04/28/2013
NVIDIA has publically updated their roadmap with the announcement of the GPU family that will follow 2014’s Maxwell family. That new family is Volta which will use stacked DRAM, which will be connected to the GPU with TSV.NVIDIA is targeting a 1TB/sec bandwidth rate for Volta, which to put ...
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IFTLE 144 Personnel Changes in Taiwan; Glass Usage in WLP
04/21/2013
Apologies for the delay in covering the IMAPS device packaging conference this year. I normally get access to the manuscripts as I am leaving the show to insure timely coverage. This year that was not possible. IMAPS' move of their office to the RTP NC area is causing further delays (they will so...
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IFTLE 143 HMC status; Pkging Materials $$ now Exceed Wafer Fab Materials
04/13/2013
Hybrid Memory Cube ConsortiumTwenty-five years after Ronald Regan made his famous demand in Berlin "Tear down this wall," Micron, Samsung and early hybrid memory cube consortium members promised to tear down the memory wall [ see IFTLE 38, "IFTLE 38 of Memory Cubes and IvyBridges - more 3D and TS...
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IFTLE 142 GlobalFoundries 2.5 / 3D at 20nm; Intel Haswell GT3; UMC / SCP Prototype Details
04/09/2013
GlobalFoundries A year ago [see IFTLE 102, "3.5D Interposers tosomeday replace PWBs” - TSMC; GF engaging with 3D customers; Intel predictsConsolidation"] GlobalFoundries (GF) CTO Bartlett announced the installation of TSV production tools for the company's 20nm technology platform an...
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CHIPWORKS REAL CHIPS BLOG
DICK JAMES is a 40-year veteran of the semiconductor industry and the senior technology analyst for Chipworks, an Ottawa, Canada-based specialty reverse engineering company. Chipworks analyses a broad range of devices, giving Dick a unique overview of what technologies make it into the real world of semiconductor production.
Intel Foundries MEMS for Fuel Cell Start-up Nectar
01/30/2013
In the last couple of years there have been announcements that Intel will be acting as a foundry for FPGA company Achronix, PLD maker Tabula and programmable network processor provider Netronome, as well as much speculation about making chips for Apple. All these reports refer to using Intel&rsqu...
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IBM surprises with 22nm details at IEDM
12/12/2012
Monday afternoon at the 2012 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting, IBM discussed their 22nm SOI high-performance technology [1], aimed at servers and high-end SoC products. To an extent, this is an extension of the 32nm process, using epitaxial SiGe for the PMOS channels and stress, and du...
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Intel details 22nm trigate SoC process at IEDM
12/11/2012
After launching their 22nm tri-gate high-performance logic product back in the spring, Intel have been promising to show off their SoC derivative, and yesterday was the day at the 2012 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting. [1]As you can see from Table 1, we now have six transistor options;...
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GlobalFoundries takes on Intel with 14nm finFET “eXtreme Mobility” process
10/02/2012
A week after Intel were claiming that their 14nm process will be ready to go at the end of next year, GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF) announced that they will have a 14nm finFET process for launch in 2014. Unfortunately they timed it to coincide with the iPhone 5, so we at Chipworks were tied up for a few d...
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The Elephant Has Left the Room – 450 mm is a Go!
07/10/2012
It's the day before Semicon opens up, and we have had a slew of announcements on 450 mm, the biggest of which was the joint ASML/Intel notice that Intel will be taking a share of ASML as a way of funding 450 mm and EUV R&D. Simultaneously imec released that the Flemish government would invest...
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Sony’s PS Vita Uses Chip-on-Chip SiP – 3D, but not 3D
07/06/2012
At the tail end of last year Sony released their PlayStation Vita, and it was duly torn down by iFixit and others. In due course we took it apart too, though we didn’t post it on our teardown blog.Sony CXD5315GG in the PlaySation VitaInside we found the usual set of wireless chips, motion s...
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PETE'S POSTS
Pete's Posts covers topics germane to the electronics and solar industries, including semiconductor and photovoltaic solar cell manufacturing, advanced packaging, nanotechnology, MEMS and circuit board assembly.
Join The ConFab discussion
02/26/2013
The ConFab is Solid State Technology's annual conference and networking event. This year, it will be held June 23-26 at The Encore at The Wynn in Las Vegas. We recently started a LinkedIn group, where we will inform members of new activities, and keep the discussion going on topics related to sem...
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Questions and answers on FD-SOI
01/04/2013
A month or so ago, we implemented (without much fanfare) the ability to comment and rank articles on this site, and more easily use social media tools. I’d like to call your attention to one interesting exchange, and also invite you to start posting comments of your own. In mid-December, we...
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Present your ideas at The ConFab in 2013
11/26/2012
The ConFab is now accepting abstract submissions for our 2013 conference, to be held June 23-26 in Las Vegas. If you’re an executive at a leading semiconductor manufacturer and would like to present at The ConFab and participate in three days of productive meetings and roundtable discussion...
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The ConFab 2013 countdown begins
08/09/2012
The countdown to The ConFab has officially begun. The dates are set: next year’s event will be held June 23-26, 2013 and we’ll be back at the Encore at The Wynn Las Vegas (an encore at The Encore!). Thanks to everyone who participated last year. We had two great keynotes – John ...
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The ConFab: Big data is here
06/03/2012
Sponsors and delegates arrived today in sunny Las Vegas, for the 8th annual "The ConFab," our conference and networking event that features planned meetings between conference sessions. Everything is set up and we're ready to go, comfortably ensconced in The Encore at The Wynn. The conference and...
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Oh, snap!: Pics from The ConFab
06/03/2012
Some pics from The ConFab 2012 setup:Getting the conference books ready to distribute (Luba and Karen), inside the book, various signs -- sessions, sponsors, Solid State Technology -- view down the hall, Sabrina at the conference table, The ConFab map.
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EUVL FOCUS
Dr. Vivek Bakshi blogs about EUV Lithography (EUVL) and related topics of interest. He has edited two books on EUVL and is an internationally recognized expert on EUV Source Technology and EUV Lithography. He consults, writes, teaches and organizes EUVL related workshops. WWW.euvlitho.com
2013 International Workshop on EUVL: Maui, Hawaii, June 10-14, 2013
03/11/2013
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Bring me the rhinoceros: A Review of the 2013 SPIE Advanced Lithography EUVL Conference
03/04/2013
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Further comments on physics and engineering of EUV sources
02/12/2013
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EUV source roadmaps: Physics vs Engineering
01/28/2013
I am frequently asked by my consulting clients and colleagues when EUV sources will be ready to support high volume manufacturing (HVM) of semiconductors. It is a difficult question to answer, partly because readiness metrics have been a moving target, or the latest performance data is not very c...
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Doing more with Moore’s Law: Status report from 2012 Source Workshop
10/31/2012
The 2012 Source Workshop was held Oct. 8-11 in Dublin, Ireland, in the Clinton Auditorium on the campus of University College Dublin. This is the industry's largest annual gathering of EUV and soft X-ray source experts, who took the opportunity to discuss the latest results from their labs. ...
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Moving forward with Moore’s Law: Throughput of EUVL scanners
10/01/2012
In order to bring EUVL scanners into high volume manufacturing (HVM) of computer chips, its throughput of 10 wafers per hour (WPH) needs to increase. That brings up three questions: how much do we need to increase the current throughput for HVM insertion, what needs to be done to increase through...
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