Issue

Increasingly, advanced semiconductor manufacturing research is a collaborative effort.

European R&D consortium IMEC recently offered more details of its work in Ge-on-Si and other novel materials, in efforts to improve two processes: optimizing chemical mechanical planarization (CMP), and improving epitaxial growth using hydrogen and "inert species."

The Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography System Development Association (EUVA) says it has surpassed 100W output at intermediate focus for an EUV light source, addressing a big hurdle facing EUV lithography as a production-viable candidate for next-generation semiconductor manufacturing.

Toshiba is prepping a ??15B (US $157M) investment in a <25nm NAND flash test line, eyeing mass production in 2012, a move that not only tightens the NAND flash scaling wars, but also could narrow the insertion point for a next-generation lithography set.

An EU-funded project has come one step closer to its goal of building silicon photonics circuits, with the creation of a fully CMOS-compatible laser source coupled to a silicon waveguide.

New insights into memristors could offer an offramp to the increasingly challenging navigations of Moore's Law scaling, and some very interesting applications in biomed research.

Novellus says it has devised a new process technology for tungsten vias for copper interconnect applications in 3X node and below memory devices.

High-productivity development techniques have been applied to surface preparation and deposition, however, broadly applied, this approach has the potential to significantly improve overall efficiency and effectiveness of industry R&D efforts. John Doering, ATMI, Tempe, AZ USA, Weimin Li, ATMI, Danbury, CT USA

Relaxation energies associated with defects in high-k/metal gate devices indicate oxygen vacancies in the interfacial SiO₂ layer. D. Veksler, et al, SEMATECH.

Heterogeneous microsystems are smarter than their macroscopic counterparts, more powerful and energy-efficient. Jan Provoost, Chris Van Hoof, Imec.

PoP, together with WSP and QFN, have been the industry???s most successful packages during the last decade, and their success will extend into this decade. Mario A. Bolanos, Texas Instruments Inc.

The authors describe the construction and characterization of an ALD process development chamber. Prashant Phatak, et al, Intermolecular Inc.

Source/mask optimization techniques show promise for extending the resolution capability of the single-exposure approach. Jim Blatchford, et al, Texas Instruments, Inc.; Thuc Dam, et al, Luminescent Technologies.

A new SEMI standard addresses ways to improve the electrostatic protection of new generations of extremely electrostatic sensitive devices. Gavin Rider, Microtome.

The scalability of Cu/air gap interconnects to future technology nodes appears to be possible with air gaps, without performance or reliability losses. Gerald Beyer, et al, IMEC, Leuven.