Issue

As the industry evolves to meet consumers' increasing demand for smaller, faster and cheaper devices, chipmakers are growing more focused on the wafer size transition from 300mm to 450mm.

The effort to actively engage equipment companies in the serious development of tools for 450mm wafers got a major boost last fall with the formal announcement of the investment of serious money by four major semiconductor manufacturers and the state of New York aimed at 450mm development at the Albany Nanotech facility in upstate New York.

Metrology solutions are currently being investigated by SEMATECH to address the challenges of future nodes. Abraham Arceo, Benjamin Bunday, Aaron Cordes, and Victor Vartanian, SEMATECH, Albany, NY.

An enhancement in contaminant moisture removal  is acieved for inert (nitrogen, noble) and hydrogen gas purifier by tailoring purifier adsorbent properties. Abneesh Srivastava, Thomas Gaffne, Entegris, Inc., San Diego

In field studies, the XLR 600ix laser has demonstrated an uptime of 99.8%. Rajasekhar Rao, Slava Rokitski, Rui Jiang, John Melchior, Daniel J. Riggs, and Theodore Cacouris, Cymer Inc., San Diego, CA

Copper wire is fast gaining popularity for chip bonding, but it is a less understood and less mature process than bonding with gold. A 3D optical microscope can help provide data needed for imprint studies aimed at process optimization and sampling.  Matt Novak , Bruker Nano Surfaces Division, Tucson, AZ.

The maturing semidonductor industry, Pete Singer

Phil Garrou, Microelectronic Consultants of NC

Jay Esfandyari, Fabio Pasolini, Gang Xu, STMicroelectronics, Coppell, TX

Dan Donabedian, Ziptronix

Flexible electronics, now being printed, is the future of new applications in sensors, displays, power and lighting according to experts gathered at the FlexTech Alliance 2012 Flexible Electronics & Displays Conference & Exhibition (held Feb. 6-9 in Phoenix).

Thin Film Electronics ASA and PARC, a Xerox company, won the FlexTech Alliance Innovation Award for the world's first working prototype of a printed, non-volatile memory device addressed with complementary organic circuits, the equivalent of CMOS circuitry.

The worldwide high-brightness LED market grew from $11.3 billion in 2010 to $12.5 billion in 2011, a growth rate of 9.8%, according to Strategies Unlimited, the leading market research firm in LEDs.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) released the 2011 International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), a roadmap of near-term and long-term challenges and innovations for the semiconductor design and manufacturing industry through 2026.

Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) added three members to the global Energy Research Initiative (ERI) that focuses on new technologies for renewable energy and its efficient and reliable distribution on the power grid.

Research institute CEA-Leti shows "significant progress" with the MAPPER Lithography massively parallel direct write technology, resolving 22nm dense lines and spaces and 22nm dense contact holes in positive chemically amplified resist.