Pete’s Posts

At Semicon Europa last week, Paul Farrar, general manager of G450C, provided an update on the consortium’s progress in demonstrating 450mm process capability. He said 25 tools will be installed in the Albany cleanroom by the end of 2013, progress has been made on notchless wafers with a 1.5mm edge exclusion zone, they have seen significant progress in wafer quality, and automation and wafer carriers are working. G450C is an…

The way in which logic and memory technology is likely to evolve over the next six years was provided at imec’s recent International Technology Forum in Leuven, Belgium. An Steegan, senior vice president process technology at imec, said that FinFETs will likely become the logic technology of choice for the upcoming generations, with high mobility channels coming into play for the 7 and 5nm generation (2017 and 2019). In DRAM,…

At the recent imec International Technology Forum Press Gathering in Leuven, Belgium, imec CEO Luc Van den hove provided an update on blood cell sorting technology that combines semiconductor technology with microfluidics, imaging and high speed data processing to detect tumorous cancer cells. As I reported previously, the challenge is huge: one has to have the ability to detect one bad tumor cell in 5 billion blood cells. This equate…

Despite some economic woes in recent years, Europe remains dedicated to building a strong electronics industry. This was brought home to me recently when, in advance of Semicon Europa (October 7-10 in Dresden), I had a chance to talk with Heinz Kundert, president of SEMI Europe. “There are several initiatives like the KET (key enabling technology) initiative that are working on the same goals to increase the competitiveness but also…

Please join us for a free webcast on Advanced Packaging, to be held on September 30th, at 11:00am Eastern, 10:00am Central and 8:00am Pacific. You can register in advance at this link: https://event.webcasts.com/starthere.jsp?ei=1021830 The webcast, which will feature presenters from Texas Instruments and Micron, will address how today’s packaging technology is driven by a combination of cost, performance, form factor and reliability. The presenters will examine new advances in conventional…

One of the most common questions I’m asked is “How can I contribute to Solid State Technology?” We try to make that an easy process – so the short answer is shoot me an e-mail (psinger@extensionmedia.com) or give me a call (978-470-1806) – but I prepared this short guide as an overview of our various publications and the different ways to contribute.   First, a little about us: Solid State…

At Semicon West last week (and at The ConFab a few weeks ago) some key trends were clearly evident in the semiconductor industry. It’s apparent that the world’s appetite for electronics has never been greater. That has increasingly taken the form of mobile electronics, including smartphones, tablets and tablets and the new “phablets.” People want to watch movies and live sports on their phones. They want their mobile devices to…

February 10, 2012 — Day 3 of the 2012 Strategies in Light conference continued the LED Manufacturing session. Presenters covered lithography for light emitting diode (LED) manufacture, advanced packaging, metrology and testing, high-performance materials, and other topics, such as the value of dimming. First up, Thomas Uhrmann of EV Group with a review of the lithography and wafer bonding tools that they provide for HV manufacturing of LEDs. Nano-imprint is…

Gail Flower, Editor-in-Chief What were the most significant technological advancements in our industry in 2008? Every year Advanced Packaging pans the industry to get a wide-spectrum view of what to expect from the coming year. Without a doubt, these are economically challenging times by all perspectives in this Forecast. Yet, there are bright spots: 3D packaging with TSV interconnect, photovoltaic technology, laser dicing, flip chip, WLP, sockets families aimed at…

What were the most significant technological advancements in our industry in 2007? Click here to enlarge image This year’s forecast points toward healthy, confident growth in packaging. Some of the most significant growth is in the area of 3D stacked die and system-in-package. It’s amazing how many industry leaders mentioned the adoption of and deployment of 3D packaging. These same experts used words like “shift, mobile device, driving force, and…