Issue

Semiconductor manufacturing is entering a new phase. While great attention is being paid to coming technology challenges, the economics may prove even trickier.

Flat screen displays keep getting bigger, better, and cheaper. Currently, the market for large, flat TVs is dominated by plasma displays, but active matrix liquid crystal displays (AMLCD) are rapidly gaining market share.

Industry pundits have said that the current semiconductor cycle is being driven not by PC sales as in years past, but by a portability revolution featuring new mobile consumer electronics.

Advanced DRAMs using deep-trench capacitors have small cell designs and excellent scaling potential.

The 2005 International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) predicts that up to 11 layers of hierarchical wiring with a cumulative wire length >1.4km will be used in microprocessor chips manufactured in 2007.

R&D studies evaluate the particle-removal performance and safe limits of single-wafer cleaning techniques based on either immersion megasonics or mixed-fluid jet bombardment.

Semiconductor solder bump operations, in which chips are attached to their substrates using both lead and lead-free plating processes, produce wastewater containing heavy metals (primarily lead and tin) as well as acids, chelates, and oxidizing agents.

China’s electronics industry is moving onto the world stage with increasing momentum, due largely to strategic efforts aimed at increasing its manufacturing capability and narrowing its technology gap with Taiwan, Japan, the US, and Europe.

In the five years since the beginning of 2001, China has accounted for 21% of the industry’s new fab construction.