In an article published in the most recent issue of imec’s online magazine (http://magazine.imec.be/) titled “Chips must learn how to feel pain and how to cure themselves,” researchers Francky Chatthoor and Guido Groeseneken discuss how to build reliable “5nm-node” ICs…
CSP Market Forecast – Strong
Chip-Scale Packages (CSP) continue to be in strong demand for IC needing the smallest form-factors for applications including automotive, industrial applications to mobile phones and wearable electronics, according to leading market research firm TechSearch International. TechSearch’s latest CSP market forecast…
Dan Rose departs material realm
With sadness I post that Daniel J. Rose, Ph.D.—founder of Rose Associates—passed away on September 20, 2016, due to complications of Alzheimer’s disease. Dan Rose received a Ph.D. in materials engineering from the University of British Columbia, and subsequently spent…
Fish-Scale Piezo Generators
Piezoelectric generators are based on thin-films of structured materials that can convert pressure into electricity. Inorganic crystals such as aluminum-nitride (AlN) barium titanate (BT) and lead-zirconium-titanate (PZT) have long been explored as piezoelectric films for various applications. Now researchers Sujoy…
Patterning with Films and Chemicals
Somewhere around 40nm is the limit on the smallest half-pitch feature that can be formed with a single-exposure of 193-nm wavelength laser light using water immersion (193i) lithography. While multiple-patterning (MP) is needed to achieve tighter half-pitches, smaller features at…
ASM’s Haukka ALD Award
Dr. Suvi Haukka, executive scientist at ASM International, located in Finland, was awarded the ALD Innovation prize at the ALD 2016 Ireland conference (Figure), as chosen by the conference chairs. Haukka has had a lifetime career in Atomic Layer Deposition…
The Last Technology Roadmap
After many delays, the last ever International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) has been published. Now that there are just a few companies remaining in the world developing new fab technologies in each of the CMOS logic and memory spaces,…
Broadening Scope of SEMICON
Once upon a time, SEMICONs were essentially just for semiconductor manufacturing business and technology, and predominantly CMOS ICs. Back when we followed public roadmaps for technology to maintain the cadence of new manufacturing nodes in support of Moore’s Law, it…
Dow Kills CIGS Solar Shingles
The mega-merger between Dow and DuPont has already shaken out an under-performing product line: Powerhouse(TM) solar singles. As reported at PVTech, over 100 jobs in Milpitas, California and in Midland, Michigan will be lost along with the production line that…
Eloquent Executives Ecosystem Expositions
#cmc,#confab,#namedropping With dimensional scaling reaching economic limits, each company in the IC fab industry must rely upon trusted connections with customers and suppliers to know which way to go, and the only way to gain trusted connections is through attending…
