Device Architecture

DEVICE ARCHITECTURE ARTICLES



Industrial semiconductor segment grew 35% in 2010: TI holds #1 spot

11/10/2011 

In 2010, Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) took the largest market share for industrial electronics semiconductors, according to a new IHS iSuppli Industrial Electronics Market Tracker report.

SiOnyx awarded $3M program from the DoD

11/09/2011 

SiOnyx, Inc. was awarded a multiphase contract from the US Department of Defense to develop next generation sensing technologies for detecting laser light in targeting systems.

Graphene research grant spurs talk of Swedish graphene research center

11/08/2011 

Chalmers University of Technology received the majority of a new Swedish research grant of SEK40 million to study graphene. The financing comes from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.

Micron begins STT-MRAM dev partnership at A*STAR

11/08/2011 

Micron and Singapore's A*STAR Data Storage Institute will collaborate on spin transfer torque magnetic random access memory (STT-MRAM) development, both investing in the R&D and collaborating on the projects, over the next 3 years.

Graphene doping doesn't need its own step when done on the edge

11/07/2011 

Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) researchers compared graphene doping techniques for device interconnects and found that edge passivation is 1000x more effective than surface treatment.

STM completes 20nm chip tapeout with MENT design tools

11/07/2011 

Mentor Graphics Corporation (NASDAQ:MENT) completed a 20nm test chip tapeout with STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM), overcoming low-power and double-patterning challenges.

2011 IC sales 2%: Who's overachieving, who's tanking

11/04/2011 

While everyone's now expecting 2011 to skid into low-single-digit growth (~2% or maybe lower), that overall metric hides some impressive individual results for a number of companies and a variety of reasons, notes IC Insights.

Freescale Semiconductor CEO takes SIA lead

11/03/2011 

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) elected Freescale Semiconductor CEO Rich Beyer as its 2012 chairman. This will be the SIA's 35th year.

MEMS alternatives for miniature auto-focus cameras

11/02/2011 

Dr. Giles Humpston, Tessera, presents the free, on-demand webcast Lens Tilt in Small Auto-Focus Cameras. Dr. Humpston covers the dominant auto-focus miniature camera technology today -- VCM -- and an improved technology based on MEMS, which is being commercialized now.

MOSAID taps Winpac to package fastest NAND Flash device

11/02/2011 

MOSAID launched the 256Gb HLNAND2 semiconductor memory device, operating at up to 800MB/s per channel for mass storage applications. Winpac will package and distribute HLNAND devices for MOSAID.

Semiconductor sales improve in Sept., suggest 2% growth for 2011

10/31/2011 

Global sales of semiconductors rose again slightly in September for the second consecutive month, providing "an optimistic" close to 3Q11 -- though the industry still struggles to find some visibility heading into the all-important seasonal year-end holiday consumer purchasing cycle.

Spansion consolidates test and assembly ops

10/31/2011 

Spansion Inc. (NYSE:CODE) will consolidate its 2 semiconductor assembly and test services (SATS) operations, closing its facility in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to reduce costs by about $30 million annually.

EUV Symposium: Updates on defects, resists, AIMS, and non-EUV NGL

10/28/2011 

Stefan Wurm, director of SEMATECH's lithography program, relayed highlights from last week's EUV Symposium (Oct. 17-19 in Miami), including results in defects (mask blanks and substrates) and an update on SEMATECH's EUV Mask Infrastructure (EMI) program.

Xilinx FPGA boasts 6.8B transistors

10/25/2011 

Xilinx Inc. (Nasdaq:XLNX) began shipping its Virtex-7 2000T field programmable gate array (FPGA), a programmable logic device with 6.8 billion transistors: 2 million logic cells, a die-stack architecture, low power consumption, and a more flexible design than large ASICS and monolithic FPGAs.

Present at VLSI Technology and Circuits

10/24/2011 

The 2012 Symposia on VLSI Technology & Circuits, to be held in Hawaii, June 12-14 (Technology) and 13-15 (Circuits), will accept innovative, original work on microelectronics, ranging from gate stacks and advanced lithography to 3D packaging.

Spintronics interfaces subject of new NIST and Argonne study

10/24/2011 

A highly engineered lanthanum and strontium compound material could form the basis of spintronics devices, report Argonne National Laboratory and NIST researchers.

Smartphone DRAM surges with higher DRAM density and increased adoption

10/18/2011 

DRAM shipments for smartphones will grow 157.2% year-over-year in 2011, a surging sector of a slumping DRAM industry, shows IHS. By 2015, DRAM for smartphones will be a 13.9 billion unit business, and 16% of total DRAM shipments.

iPhone 4S first with 5-lens autofocus camera, other component changes

10/17/2011 

IHS and Chipworks share details from their preliminary teardowns of the Apple iPhone 4S. The device resembles an iPad/iPhone hybrid, and the 5-lens autofocus camera module is the first IHS has encountered in a smartphone.

BiTMICRO spearheads Philippines microelectronics design center

10/17/2011 

The Philippino brothers behind BiTMICRO in Silicon Valley and its Philippine subsidiary BiTMICRO Networks International Inc. have created the Bruce Institute of Technology (BIT) microelectronics and storage system training institute for the Philippines.

Wafer demand isn't spread evenly around device types

10/17/2011 

Demand for NAND devices will grow more than 20% in 2011, while DRAM demand will decline by more than 1%. Other trends? 45nm and smaller nodes are increasing market share, says Semico.




WEBCASTS



Environment, Safety & Health

Date and time TBD

The semiconductor industry is an acknowledged global leader in promoting environmental sustainability in the design, manufacture, and use of its products, as well as the health and safety of its operations and impacts on workers in semiconductor facilities (fabs). We will examine trends and concerns related to emissions, chemical use, energy consumption and worker safety and health.

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Wafer Processing

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As the industry moves to 10nm and 7nm nodes, advances in wafer processing – etch, deposition, planarization, implant, cleaning, annealing, epitaxy among others – will be required. Manufacturers are looking for new solutions for sustained strain engineering, FinFETs, FDSOI and multi-gate technologies, 3D NAND, and high mobility transistors.

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