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

IFTLE 153 IMAPS DPC part 3 Leti, Dow, STATSChipPAC

Wed Jul 03 16:25:00 CDT 2013

Finishing up our look at the 2013 IMAPS Device Packaging ConferenceLetiLeti examined the reliability of die to wafer bonding using copper/tin interconnects. Above 232 C tin rapidly reacts with copper to produce higher melting point intermetallic compounds. They studied thermal cycli... Read More >>

IFTLE 152 2013 IMAPS Device Packaging Conference part 2

Sat Jun 22 16:04:00 CDT 2013

Continuing with our coverage of the March IMAPS DPC. TI In his keynote presentation on semiconductor packaging trends Devan Iyer of TI showed a great chart on package shrinkage through the years. We have moved from the 1.75mm SOIC to the picostar 2G at 0.075mm which they claim to be the t... Read More >>

IFTLE 151 2013 IMAPS Device Packaging Conf part 1 - Amkor

Sun Jun 16 11:30:00 CDT 2013

I’ll be interspersing reports from DPC with ECTC and ICEP reports so pay attention as to where the material over the summer is coming from. In addition I will be covering ConFab and Semicon West so there will be a lot of information coming your way. The IMAPS DPC , Proceedings and the Lite... Read More >>

IFTLE 150 ICEP Osaka part 1

Mon Jun 10 10:22:00 CDT 2013

The Int Symp on Electronic Packaging was held in Osaka the week of April 10th with keynote speakers, Dr. Subramanian S. Iyer of IBM, Dr. Takeshi Uenoyama of Panasonic, and Dr. Urmi Ray of Qualcomm. General Chair was Shintao Yamamichi of Renesas and Technical program Chair was Hitoshi Saka... Read More >>

IFTLE 149 2013 ECTC part 1

Tue Jun 04 09:45:00 CDT 2013

The undisputed Jewel of IC packaging conferences, the ECTC (Electronic Component Technology Conference) took place this past week in Las Vegas with 1300+ attendees, 95 exhibitors and IFTLE in attendance. Over 600 submitted abstracts resulted in ~300 presentations (verbal and poster) and the... Read More >>

IFTLE 148 The Future of Packaging: A Look From 50,000 Feet

Sat May 25 11:36:00 CDT 2013

There is a saying in American business that recommends if you really want to understand something you need to take a “50,000 foot look” (for those of you on the metric system, that’s 15.2 km). The logic behind this goes something like: if you're engaged in a battle and need to k... Read More >>

Read the Insights From Leading Edge Blog

CHIPWORKS REAL CHIPS BLOG

Economy Threatens Semi Growth, not Technology – so Say Fab Engineers at ASMC

Thu Jun 06 15:07:00 CDT 2013

It’s still spring in the north-eastern part of North America, and that means it’s the time of year for the Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Conference, in the amiable ambiance of Saratoga Springs, New York. The conference took place last month, on May 13 – 16.As the name say... Read More >>

Intel Foundries MEMS for Fuel Cell Start-up Nectar

Wed Jan 30 14:40:00 CST 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...; Read More >>

IBM surprises with 22nm details at IEDM

Wed Dec 12 04:00:00 CST 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... Read More >>

Intel details 22nm trigate SoC process at IEDM

Tue Dec 11 12:23:00 CST 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;... Read More >>

GlobalFoundries takes on Intel with 14nm finFET “eXtreme Mobility” process

Tue Oct 02 16:22:00 CDT 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... Read More >>

The Elephant Has Left the Room – 450 mm is a Go!

Tue Jul 10 09:35:00 CDT 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... Read More >>

Read the Chipworks Real Chips Blog

PETE'S POSTS

Tackling Design for Yield Questions at DAC

Wed May 22 15:39:00 CDT 2013

Process variations are unavoidable, but how can chip designers plan for them in their designs to obtain optimal yield and device performance? That’s one of the focal points of a pavilion panel at the upcoming Design Automation Conference (DAC), to be held June 2-6 in Austin, TX. Titled "Le... Read More >>

Join The ConFab discussion

Tue Feb 26 11:27:00 CST 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... Read More >>

Questions and answers on FD-SOI

Fri Jan 04 14:56:00 CST 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... Read More >>

Present your ideas at The ConFab in 2013

Mon Nov 26 09:04:00 CST 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... Read More >>

The ConFab 2013 countdown begins

Thu Aug 09 16:18:00 CDT 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 ... Read More >>

The ConFab: Big data is here

Sun Jun 03 19:19:00 CDT 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... Read More >>