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 102 “3.5D Interposers to someday replace PWBs” - TSMC; GF engaging with 3D customers; Intel predicts Consolidation

05/19/2012
3.5D Interposers At the 15th Symposium on Polymers for Microelectronics held last week in Wilmington DE, TSMC’s Doug Yu, Sr. Dir. of front end and back end technology development,  challenged the current nomenclature for interposers and suggested that the more versatile interposer tech... Read More >>

IFTLE 101 Advanced Packaging at IMAPS MINIPAD part 2

05/13/2012
Continuing with our examination of advanced packaging at the 2012 IMAPS MINIPAD.ST Micro reported on stress induced fine pitch copper pillar failures. Compared to solder bump, Cu pillar bumping is known to possess good electrical properties, better electromigration performance and better thermal ... Read More >>

IFTLE 100 IMAPS MINAPAD Addresses Advanced Packaging in Grenoble

05/06/2012
"I've been a big fan of Phil's ever since his first blog in August of 2007. Did you know he was born in Hell's Kitchen in New York City? Congratulations to the world's foremost expert on 3D integration on his 100th blog!" -- Peter Singer, Editor-in-Chief, Solid State Technology Dr. Phil Garrou ha... Read More >>

IFTLE 99 Electronic Design Process Symp (EDPS) focuses on 3DIC

04/30/2012
A few weeks ago EDPS (the Electronic Design Process Symp) held a 3D day in Monterey CA. Riko Radojcic of Qualcomm gave a plenary on the “Roadmap for Design and EDA Infrastructure for 3D Products” and Arif Rahman, Altera, Steve Pateras, Mentor, Mac Greenberg and Bassillos Petrakis of C... Read More >>

IFTLE 98 Lester the Lightbulb vs CFL and LED : the Saga Continues

04/21/2012
In IFTLE 63 [ see IFTLE 63, “Bidding Adieu to Lester Lightbulb] back in Aug 2011 IFTLE attempted to make the case that our little 25 cent friend Lester the incandescent bulb had gotten a bump rap as he awaited extinction on death row. It’s not that the claims of the newer technologies... Read More >>

IFTLE 97 DATE in Dresden, Synopsys 3D EDA Solution

04/15/2012
This year's Design, Automation and Test Europe Conference [DATE] was held in Dresden.  This year's 1 day 3D Integration workshop was headed up by Sandeep K. Goel (TSMC), Qiang Xu (Univ Hong Kong) and  Saqib Khursheed (University of Southampton). ARM, IMEC and the Swiss Federal Institute... Read More >>

SOLID STATE TECHNOLOGY BLOG

Read opinions/analysis on the day's news, tradeshow updates, and more. We blog about solar, semiconductor, advanced packaging and nanotech manufacturing industries.

Entegris tour covers the leading edge of filtration, 450mm, and the importance of collaboration

05/02/2012
May 2, 2012 -- Solid State Technology recently visited Entegris’ Billerica, MA, location to discuss the contamination challenges of leading-edge semiconductor fabs, the progress made or not made by the semiconductor industry on 450mm, and Entegris’ new i2M Center for Advanced Material... Read More >>

Solid State Technology Blog

03/29/2012

Semiconductor and display fab trends gleaned from AMAT's Analyst Day

03/29/2012
Applied Materials Inc. (AMAT) is the leading supplier of semiconductor fabricationfab equipment to the global semiconductor industry. After Applied Materials' (AMAT) Analyst Day this week, Citi, Barclays Capital, and Credit Suisse share their bullet-point takeaways about the semiconductor and rel... Read More >>

ElectroIQ is now Solid State Technology!

03/14/2012
Our site has a new name, but it's one you already know: Starting today, ElectroIQ.com will re-brand under Solid State Technology. This closely matches with the design of Solid State Technology magazine, which incorporates technical features for semiconductor, MEMS, displays, and LED manufacturers... Read More >>

Texas Instruments (TI, TXN): Trouble with wireless, analog is stable

03/09/2012
March 9, 2012 -- Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI, NASDAQ:TXN) narrowed and lowered its expected ranges for revenue and earnings per share (EPS) in Q1 2012. The reductions are due to lower demand for wireless products, TI said in its report (PRNewswire).Revenue: $2.99-3.11 billionEPS: $0.15-0.1... Read More >>

Is semiconductor capex spending beating expectations? AMAT's Q1 results, Q2 guidance

02/20/2012
February 20, 2012 -- Applied Materials Inc. (Nasdaq:AMAT) is one of the largest and broadest makers of semiconductor manufacturing and packaging equipment, as well as tools for display and solar photovoltaics fab. The company's strong Q1 results, and positive guidance for Q2, have many analysts q... Read More >>

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’s 22-nm Trigate Transistors Exposed

04/24/2012
Last week Intel had their Q1 conference call for financial analysts, and revealed that the 22-nm Ivy Bridge parts would make up 25% of their shipment volume in the second quarter of this year.  That means that a good quantity will already will have shipped, and we managed to track some down ... Read More >>

Intel to Present on 22-nm Tri-gate Technology at VLSI Symposium

04/12/2012
Just published is the press release and tip-sheet on the 2012 VLSI Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits, this year in Hawaii. Listed first in the VLSI Technology highlight papers is Intel’s paper, “A 22nm High-Performance and Low-Power CMOS Technology Featuring Fully Depleted Tri-... Read More >>

Dialog Semi Gets the Girls for Apple

04/02/2012
Over the years we have looked at a number of products from Apple, and in their mobile products we have seen a continuous series of design wins for power management chips from Dialog Semiconductor, all custom-made parts since they have not been in their normal product listings.  One of the di... Read More >>

Semicon China – SMIC Shows off 28-nm HKMG Development

03/20/2012
Another foundry goes gate-lastIn the opening keynote at Semicon China today, Dr. Tzu-Yin Chiu, CEO of SMIC, gave a run-through of their technology portfolio, and in doing so let out a few details of their sub-40 nm process development.SMIC's Process/Application PortfolioIt appears that they are a... Read More >>

GloFo’s FinFETS are Better than Intel's! Musings from CPTF

03/18/2012
This confident statement came from Subramani (Subi) Kengeri of GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GloFo) during the panel session in the GloFo/IBM/Samsung Common Platform Technology Forum (CPTF), held Wednesday in the Santa Clara Convention Center. I’m currently on one of my periodic road trips, and this one... Read More >>

GlobalFoundries' Ajit Manocha Visits CES

01/17/2012
GLOBALFOUNDRIES has hosted a reception for the last three years at CES, although they don't exhibit there, or even take a suite for the show - they find it a useful way to connect with customers and the analyst and journalist community. Held on CES Tuesday (Jan 10), I expected a large Intel-style... Read More >>

SEMI NEWS AND VIEWS

SEMI is the global industry association serving the manufacturing supply chains for the microelectronic, photovoltaic, LED and display industries. Bloggers include Jonathan Davis (President, Semiconductor Business), Maggie Hershey (Sr. Director, Public Policy), Tom Morrow (EVP, Emerging Markets Group), Stan Myers (President, SEMI), and Dan Tracy (Sr. Director, Industry Research & Statistics).

SEMI News and Views

05/08/2012

SEMI News and Views

05/08/2012

SEMI News and Views

05/08/2012

SEMI Educates Policymakers on 450mm Transition

04/05/2012
By Jonathan Davis, president, SEMI Semiconductor BusinessWith estimates for the R&D cost of 450mm wafer transition running in the tens of billions of dollars, public-private partnerships will have a critical role throughout the world.  Already, the State of New York is anticipating ... Read More >>

Stampede of the Giants: Equipment Spending Growth Flat in 2012; Record Fab Equipment Spending Expected for 2013

03/09/2012
Stampede of the Giants: Equipment Spending Growth Flat in 2012; Record Fab Equipment Spending Expected for 2013By Christian Gregor Dieseldorff, SEMI Industry Research and StatisticsSan Jose, California, March 1, 2012In January, SEMI analyzed fab spending and capacity growth for 2012 and 2013 (see... Read More >>

ISS 2012 Recap: Roadmap to Profitability Threatened

02/09/2012
By Tom Morrow, EVP, SEMI Emerging MarketsIndustry leaders at the 35th annual SEMI Industry Strategy Symposium (ISS) described a perfect storm of cost, complexity and uncertainty as the industry struggles with process engineering complexity at sub-28nm nodes, hazy EUV installation schedules, 3D-IC... Read More >>

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.

Funding the future: How best to spend limited R&D dollars?

05/03/2012
One of the big issues now facing the industry is to how best spend limited funding for research and development, when so much needs to be done. Continued scaling to 20nm and below, a transition to 450mm, 3D integration, device new structures, a bevy of new materials with unknown integration chall... Read More >>

Thirty years ago today

05/02/2012
Today marks an interesting milestone for me: 30 years ago, I started work as an editor covering the semiconductor industry. I reported to Don Levinthal, publisher of Semiconductor International, at 222 W. Adams in downtown Chicago. The magazine was produced by Cahners, which had recently acquired... Read More >>

The packaging side of The ConFab

04/16/2012
The ConFab has gained a reputation as the place to meet to discuss front-end semiconductor manufacturing issues – and that’s true today more than ever – but there has also been a strong focus on the packaging side of the equation. The ConFab has highlighted specific packaging te... Read More >>

The Bankability of PV Tech: The New Key to Success

09/09/2010
A decidedly non-technical term was in vogue this week at the very technical 25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference (EUPVSEC). The term “bankability” was often used to describe the likelihood of success of a given technology. In these days of scarce capital, the only projec... Read More >>

3 Facts from EUPVSEC

09/09/2010
The one and only driving factor in the photovoltaics industry is cost per Watt. This is primarily a function of efficiency – how much of the sun’s power is converted to electricity -- and the cost of manufacturing and installation. The ultimate goal of course is to achieve grid parity... Read More >>

10 million solar roofs in U.S. bill passes

07/26/2010
The Ten Million Solar Roofs Act of 2010 (S. 3460) was was passed by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee by a vote of 13 to 10 on July 21, 2010. It was introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, a member of the Senate energy and environment committees and chairman of the green jobs subcommittee.The... Read More >>
© 2012. PennWell Corporation. All Rights Reserved. PRIVACY POLICY | TERMS AND CONDITIONS