01/01/2009  Defect detection within MEMS devices is vital to ensure their operation, but many mechanical properties cannot be determined through electrical or functional test.

01/01/2009  On a picture-perfect day in October, the Advanced Packaging roadshow crew took to the autobahn from Stuttgart, Germany to Hanau, to tour Umicore Electronic Materials.

12/24/2008  More challenging overlay requirements are driving a trend to use high-order control knobs for production set-up of scanners. This article explores the overlay requirements that are driving this trend, the challenges involved with implementing in production, and the cost-of-ownership trade-offs between different high-order control strategies.

12/23/2008  Once content to salvage silicon scrap from the IC industry, manufacturers of wafer-based solar cells have become the largest consumer of high-purity silicon. Rising raw material costs and the emergence of less expensive alternative technologies have led manufacturers to find ways to rapidly reduce their silicon consumption in some nifty ways.

12/19/2008  Wednesday morning at IEDM was an endurance test, with nine consecutive papers on 22, 32, and 45nm devices. A lot of strained silicon, and not a few strained attendees! Rather than cherry-pick, here's a run-through of Session 27.

12/17/2008  In his daily blog from IEDM, Chipworks' Dick James looks at a number of interesting papers presented on SRAM, image sensors, and radiation soft errors in flash memories.

12/16/2008  December 16, 2008: Heidelberg Instruments announced the sale of a μPG101 table top maskless laser patterning system to the Alberta Center for Advanced MNT Products, Canada. The system will be used for prototyping and fabrication of various devices including biosensors and microfluidics.

12/16/2008  December 16, 2008: IMEC, Europe's largest independent nanoelectronics and nanotech research center, introduced a monolithically integrated 11-megapixel micromirror array for high-end industrial applications at the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting in San Francisco on Monday.

12/16/2008  New memory concepts and the latest 32nm CMOS with metal gates and high-k dielectrics were highlights of the 2008 International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in San Francisco, Dec. 15-17. A wide range of innovative device technology, including 3D wafer-level integration and a nanowire battery were also presented.

12/16/2008  In an exclusive daily blog for SST, Chipworks' Dick James reviews presentations on interfacing chips and brain cells, nonvolatile memories, parallel sessions on s/d stress options, and a SRO talk on nanowire batteries.

12/16/2008  Let's Hope They Eventually Come Back
By Jim Walker, Gartner/Dataquest
Even though we all like to hear "Merry Christmas" and "Happy New Year" during this holiday season, our worldwide financial meltdown has made it much less cheerful. The outlook for 2009 is very bleak for worldwide economies and, more specifically, the semiconductor industry.

12/16/2008  A month after dropping its outlook for both 2008 and 2009, Gartner has decided its previous "worst-case scenario" for the chip industry isn't nearly bad enough -- it now projects only the fifth decline in the past 25 years for 2008, and says 2009 will be "considerably worse."

12/16/2008  ProMOS is poised to officially file for assistance from the Taiwanese government, a move that comes with a catch -- the company would have to abandon its partnership with Korean chipmaker Hynix and forge ties with Japan's Elpida.

12/16/2008  A languishing share price has triggered a clause in Elpida's convertible bonds (CB) whereby it has to redeem ¥50B (US $550M) of them in the next month, raising concerns over how the company will finance future capital investments.

12/16/2008  Dec. 15, 2008 - In a paper discussed at this week's IEDM, researchers from IMEC reveal a monolithically integrated 11-megapixel 10cm²micromirror array, double the pixel density of comparable micromirrors, and a 10312 cycle mechanical lifetime, also a record, they claim.

12/15/2008  In an exclusive daily blog for SST, Chipworks' Dick James soaks in the first day of IEDM with dense presentations of 22nm CMOS presentations.

12/15/2008  Minimizing the Ge in diffusion into a silicon capping layer is the key to boost electrical performance and reach 1nm EOT (equivalent oxide thickness) devices, according to IMEC researchers presenting at IEDM this week.

12/15/2008  Intel's 32nm logic technology will be described in a paper to be presented at the IEDM conference this week by Sanjay Natarajan, the company's director of 32nm CMOS technology development.

12/15/2008  brawling. This is encouraging. Laboratory technologies, like newborn babes, require the full attention of their owners. It isn't until the newcomers creep out of the lab to face their rivals that conflicts begin. By next December, some winners should be in production.

12/12/2008  Multitest Elektronische Systeme GmbH announced it will merge with the Everett Charles Technologies, semiconductor test group (STG). While the original brand names will reportedly be maintained, the key objective of this merger is to leverage combined strengths.